nom de guerre NormaOlive Brown Maggie Commercial
nom de plume Dorothea Mason Marriott Photography
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8th Light Horse Regiment 30th Reinforcements
8TH LIGHT HORSE REGIME N T 30TH REI N FORCEME N TS
We had about one hundred yards to go, the first line starting from saps which are trenches in front of the firing line leading in the enemy’s direction. At twenty five minutes past four we stood up on the banquettes of our trenches and in a few minutes the crackle of musketry turned into a roar. Never have I [Captain Leslie Hore] heard such an awful sound and no wonder. We knew they had three machine guns trained on the Nek and quite possibly there more. Their trench must have had at least two hundred men. Judging from the number we had in ours more likely two hundred and fifty. Now a machine gun firs at top speed six hundred rounds per minute and a rifleman fifteen rounds per minute. So we had concentrated on a piece of land say two hundred yards long and one hundred yards deep no fewer than five thousand bullets per minute. Out went the first line and we waited for our word, by the time they had gone the first forty yards they were down to a man. What could one hundred and seventy five men do against that volume of fire? We saw our fate in front of us but we were pledged to go and to their eternal credit the word being given not a man in the
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