Everyone says that I am the next Gene Kelley I have always watched him since I was a small child my family and friends are a big support to me and I know they will always support me. Ever since I was about 12 years old I used to go to dance lessons with all my friends but at the age of 14 they all dropped out and I carried out my dream of becoming a dancer.
My life in the battle has been atrocious, we are living in such conditions that you can't even imagine. The rations are so horrible you would rather off stay hungry and with the attack coming tomorrow my head at the moment is all over the place. I was only 16 years old when I came and I am now 18, it was my birthday yesterday. Everyday I am thinking is this it? Is it my time to die? The very first day we came we were bloody bombarded and some were even shell shocked; and I was only 16 I did not know what to do.
The life in the trenches was extremely dangerous and also very terrifying because everyone there was what you dreamt of in your nightmares, you just didn't want it to happen to you. But sadly were the ones caught up in someone else's war. They had one positive aspect that was that they were very spacious which was a good thing for us as there were 1000 of us living there. It had been said that you could walk all the way to Germany side without even leaving the trenches. As you would expect with the trenches they were a massive dug out with rats as big as rabbits crawling all over you and also annoying pests and insects. They were the only entertainment there other than my friend Joseph he was just the type of guy you need around you when your sad or need entertainment.
¬¬¬Clothing here was a very big issue, we wore the same foot wear and clothing; and if we were lucky we could have washed them just once a week otherwise we had to stay in smelly and mucky clothes which believe me you would not want to be in. One of my friends had caught the trench foot and was screaming at night and forced us to blow off his leg with a gun. None of us wanted to do it but I volunteered as I couldn't bear to see him in all this pain so I grabbed my Steyr-Mannlicher M1888 and M1888/1890 and pressed the rifle and before you knew it he was in even more pain so we were kind of just stuck so we told the chief and he called the paramedics which took him away. With his foot blown off we knew that we had to all look after each other really well and we couldn't risk