Besides his rifle, each man was armed with hand grenades—bombs—which he carried in his pockets.
When Private Briggs sprang to his feet, it took him so long to untangle himself that the others had gone on ahead of him.
He could see no one.
However, want of courage was not one of his failings. He determined upon a plan of his own. While the other combatants were locked in a death grapple, he would advance by himself to the German trenches and hurl his grenade.
To think with Private Briggs was to act. He advanced at a run.
Suddenly a parapet loomed up before him. In this same parapet, low down, Briggs beheld a black and gaping aperture—plainly a loophole of some kind. Without a moment's hesitation, Briggs hurled a Mills grenade straight through the loophole, and, forgetting for the moment that others of his troop were not with him, uttered a wild screech!
"Come on, boys!"
He leaped to the top of the trench by himself, and jumped from the parapet—into his own trenches. Having lost his sense of direction, he had charged the wrong way.
As the bomb exploded in the French trenches, men rushed toward him. Still grasping several bombs, Briggs stared at them in wide-eyed surprise. An officer rushed up to him.
Briggs explained the situation. Fortunately, no one had been wounded by the bomb.