Repairing and Laying Lines

We were laying lines up to the observation post, up to the infantry. It was in the daytime and we were up in an area what they call the bowling alley. It was a valley between two hills and the enemy was straight ahead maybe a mile or so, but this road we were on was exposed to the observists. So we were travelling with our jeep laying our lines and raising a lot of dust and of course they spotted us and they started firing on us. So we turned around. By the time they got the range we were gone. So we had to go back at night and finish laying the lines. Most time we maintained two lines, each area like. We had a call that one of the lines was not working so we went up, three of us I guess, and found that a shell had broken the line. So we repaired it and going back we got another call that the line was out again. So between a very short time we left, they’d shelled the same spot again and we had left just in time. And still on our day, one day we have to determine where to run our line to a certain area in the front lines like. I was looking for a place to, where the headquarters were and I opened up a bunker, it was just a bag for a door and these are infantry people so I walked in and the guy stood up with a loaded sten gun at me, pointed at me and he gave me hell for not hollering out or something. He had just come back from a night patrol and they were quite jumpy. So that was scary, you know, so. Young, you didn’t realize, but you learned fast.