Recognising the immediate necessity for action, and the danger of leaving the flank of the unit on our left exposed, I was compelled to act on my own initiative, being the only other officer in the company. The difficulties of commanding a full company in action, without any other officers in the company, are great; but when that action takes place in the dark, over unknown ground, it becomes mere luck if things go well.
When we had taken the first line of trenches with the bayonet and consolidated the position, not hearing from the scouts sent out to reconnoitre, I went over to have a look at the Boches’ second line. On my way back I was hit with a bullet in the ankle joint, which felt exactly like a blow from a hammer. Strange to say, I felt no pain, and found I could manage to get along by using the foot as a sort of stump. The sensation was very similar to what is experienced when one’s foot goes to sleep. Shortly after this my orderly informed me that the company on my right was preparing to advance, and immediately a cheer informed me that they had done so, and we swept onward again.
How I was able to lead the men I do not know, but somehow my ankle seemed to do the work all right. It was about a hundred yards to the Boche line, and rather too far to attack in one rush. Consequently we got down to establish superiority of fire, when to my alarm I found we were being fired at in flank. A reconnaissance discovered this to be a half-company of men without an officer, belonging to another regiment on my left. Immediately I organised them as my supports, and shortly afterwards took the second Boche line by assault. I use the term “assault” for want of a better, since the Boches had vacated their trenches, leaving only the wounded. We hardly had a minute’s breathing-space in this trench when information again came from the right that our men there were advancing, and so on again. Here, however, the Boche really fought it out; but our men, having been properly worked up, would stop at nothing. We gave a good account of ourselves in this last trench, but the men were over and on again; fortunately a deep ditch checked their further advance, and we stopped again to consolidate.
About eight o’clock in the evening the officer in charge of our headquarters company came up to the front line and did most excellent work, helping to send back a good many of the men, since we were too crowded. Here it was that, after the excitement was over, I knew all about my wound, which was paining me exceedingly. However, there was too much to be done for me to lie up with it. All night long we waited for a counter-attack, but nothing happened except desultory shelling and sniping. Towards four o’clock the next morning the enemy’s artillery began to get busy, and when the dawn broke we discovered that the enemy had snapped up to us during the night to within easy grenade-throwing distance. Their artillery grew more and more intense. I noted a few 15-inch shells, one of which scored a direct hit, but did not explode. We made two or three raids on the sap-heads, but our success was only of a temporary nature.
Towards 8 a.m. the officer commanding the front line paid me a visit, and informed me that he found it impossible to deal with the bombs, having nothing to reply with, and also that the ammunition was running short. He thought the position would very shortly become untenable, in which case he would retire, and if he thought fit would send me orders to do likewise. I never got those orders; and although I had taken every possible precaution to keep in touch with the units on my right and left, the company of my own battalion on my right managed to carry out their retirement before I was aware of it. Owing to the formation of the ground, it was impossible for us to see anything that was going on on our flanks; we were therefore entirely dependent on our scouts for all information.
About 9.30 a.m. the unit on my left unexpectedly retired, without sending me any explanation as to their reasons.
Then suddenly there was the devil’s own artillery fire, and a big shell landed close to me, and I felt a concussion in my right side, as if hit with a battering-ram. I felt myself lifted, and the next moment was gasping for breath under a heap of debris. My lungs were almost bursting when I was pulled out by some of my men. For a few minutes everything was blank, and then the first thing I knew was that the Boches were in our trench, both right and left. Immediately I tried to get the men out and retire, only to discover that the Boches had retaken the second line of trenches behind us, which had hitherto acted as our support trenches. We had no communication trenches between the first and second lines, owing to the fact that we had no tools with which to construct them. Thus we had the enemy on four sides of us. The only thing to do was to make them pay heavily for it. Every moment I expected to hear a British cheer, telling us that our reserves were again attacking, but, alas! none came.
I am not certain what time the Boches surrounded us—I think about 10.30 a.m. Our strength was then roughly about two hundred men; but we held the trench for five and a half hours, after which there were not thirty of us left. Then suddenly the Boches showered us with bombs. The result was final. Personally, I lay at the bottom of the trench, quite incapable of doing or understanding anything.
It never dawned on me that I might actually be taken prisoner alive, for I had accepted it as a certainty that I should be finished where I lay. Unconsciously I wondered what it would be like to have one’s brains bashed out with the butt end of a rifle. Would it be very painful? Anyhow, it would be quicker. And then I remember some one jerking me to my feet, where I remained propped up against the side of the trench, whilst the hands of some Hun with the most stinking breath searched my pockets and ripped off my buttons. I don’t remember what he looked like, only the revolting odour of his breath. Gradually I began to recover my normal senses, enough to look about me, and found that three of my men had been gathered up, all of whom looked pretty well done for, and then came a brutal order to move off (Auf stehen), of which none of us took the slightest notice, until the order was enforced with the aid of the bayonet; and then we were driven with bayonets into the enemy’s communication trenches, which were at that time up to the waist in mud.
In crossing over No Man’s Land, as it were, I was horrified to see Germans finishing off our wounded with their bayonets. As we were hurried on through the muddy German trenches, regardless of our wounds, we could hear squeals and cries, showing that the Boches were still carrying on with the shameful murdering of our helpless wounded. About three hundred yards back we were handed over to a German officer, who inspected our personal effects, in order to gather any possible information as to our positions. This officer was insulting, but not brutal. In the course of a few minutes we were handed over by him to the charge of a Bavarian non-commissioned officer, to be transported to the divisional base, which was at that time at La Bassée. This N.C.O. first herded us to the dug-out of some friends of his, where all our personal effects were wrested from us. Regimental buttons and badges were torn off. Only the fact that I had been wounded in the ankle through my boot, so that the top of the boot was destroyed, saved me from going into Germany barefoot. As it was, they had wrenched my left boot off before they discovered the condition of the right one. My cigarette-case, field-glasses, prismatic compass, money, signet-ring, in fact all my personal effects, were filched.