My boy shouted to the other man, "Hello, Tom, what are you doing out here?"
The reply was: "I like to fight, Bill, as I always did when I was at school, and being a single man, I came out here to Hunt the Huns." On asking Bill what brought him out, he gave the startling reply that he was married. He had married a widow with a large family. He liked peace and he therefore came here to get it. Each of them had what he wished for!
We followed on until we were within fifty yards of our barrage, which had to play five minutes on this trench. At such a distance, the air is hot and oppressive. I signalled to the boys not to go too fast for fear of moving into our own shell fire. As the barrage lifted, we doubled and jumped into the Fringe Trench, our second objective. There was no opposition. Quite a number of German dead lay about the trench.
As we continued our advance from the Fringe Trench to gain our third objective, I noticed a German soldier advancing towards us. He appeared to be about 18 years of age, and had his steel helmet on. His gas mask box was thrown over his shoulder. He did not appear to be armed and, as he advanced with his hands up I thought I heard him shout what I presumed to be "Kamerad, Kamerad!" How he escaped our barrage was a miracle. I passed him on to the rear.
Suddenly I was surprised to hear machine gun bullets strike the ground around me. Two of my boys fell face forward, wounded. We immediately all fell flat and I at once thought that someone had blundered. I naturally thought it might be possible that it was our own machine gunners, as we had not observed any machine gun emplacements as we advanced.
I cautiously crawled around on my stomach, and I saw not far in our rear the top of some German steel helmets. I knew at once that we had passed by and overlooked a German machine gun emplacement.
I divided the platoon into two sections. We crawled back to the right and left flank of this machine gun emplacement. Our moppers up, one company of the 22nd French Canadian Battalion, had not time to get to this point. When within striking distance, we fired a few rifle grenades and threw some bombs. Then all was silent from that quarter and we knew that the bombs had done the trick. I went over to this German machine gun emplacement. It was a "Mebu" type and our artillery had knocked the top off it. I found that we had exterminated the whole squad with the exception of the machine gun officer, who was badly wounded. He was half reclining and half kneeling on what was left of his machine gun. He struggled to his feet and came to attention as I reached him. He expected that we would shoot him, but we of the Anglo-Saxon race play the game fair. So I had him sent to the officer who had command of another company that had to look after prisoners. We had now lost time; we turned, doubled forward and gained our third objective. Our barrage had lifted for two intervals of 100 yards and was now playing upon the Zwischen Stellung trench, our battalion's final objective.
We had now some distance to go. As we proceeded with our advance, I heard a loud shout from the boys, who excitedly pointed to the rear. But this time, it was with a feeling of relief that I saw four tanks looming up in the distance. They were firing away beyond us at the retreating Huns. Our barrage was still playing upon the Zwischen Stellung trench. We moved along quickly. I noticed the boys were coolly smoking cigarettes.
All at once the barrage lifted. We rushed for the German trench. This was the first time we had met with resistance from the Germans, but we had followed so closely to the barrage that we were upon them before they realised it. What little opposition we did have, we quickly brushed aside.
Finally, I located my objective, the Grenadier Graben. As I was proceeding up this trench with the men I had left, I heard some shouting. It seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. I looked on the side of the trench and then saw what appeared to be the entrance of a dugout. It was almost blocked by earth caused by our artillery fire. I got the men to cautiously clear away the earth and then heard the familiar cry of "Kamerad, Kamerad!" My knowledge of the German language is limited, but I knew this meant surrender.