“Punched!”
I felt as if someone had punched me in the back. A regular Jack Johnson it was, and I went flat on the ground. There I lay for about twelve hours. Then an officer came by and wanted to know where I was hit. I told him, and he said the best thing I could do was to lay there for a bit. Then I found that there was a man on each side of me, quite dead, so I felt quite comfortable with them. Night fell and I must have dozed off, for when I woke up it was stone dark, and I could hear the wounded Germans crying out in agony. I felt like it myself, for I had been lying on my stomach all the time, and it never stopped raining. I happened to raise my head, and I saw a large fire about 500 yards away, and I thought if I could get beside it I should feel better. I tried to get up, but I could not. In the end I had to crawl over the dead body on my right, and I crawled on my stomach for 500 yards till I came to the fire. When I got there I must have fainted, for when I came round it was just getting light. Then I heard voices. I called as much as I could, and they heard me. I saw it was the Northampton outpost. I had nearly gone off again when they picked me up. When they moved me I knew the bullet had gone through my lung. They took me to the hospital and dressed my wound: Pte. H. L. Hook, Royal Sussex Regiment.
[IX. CORNERS IN THE FIGHT]
Deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age.
Milton’s “Paradise Regained.”
Who, doomed to go in company with pain,
And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
This is the happy warrior; this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior.”
An amusing thing was to hear an officer of the Royal Irish shouting at the top of his voice, “Give ’em hell, boys, give ’em hell!” He was already wounded in the back by a lump of shrapnel, but it was a treat to hear him shouting: Pte. R. Toomey, Royal Army Medical Corps.