How It Happened
How I came to be wounded was like this. I had got my bayonet fixed in some fat German, and I could not get it out in time, and a German officer hit me over the head with the butt of his revolver. Of course I went down for the count, and when I came round I found I had stopped a stray shot with my left foot, so I had to lie among the German dead until it became dark. Then I crawled to the British lines three miles away, and into hospital: Pte. P. Rourke, North Lancashires.
Joe to Bill
You know, Bill, it looked hard to see my old chums mowed down like sheep.... After being under shot and shell for seven hours, Bill, I know what it is to be at death’s door. You can bet your hat God answered my prayer, for I asked and He accepted. They were killed on each side of me, and shells were bursting front and back, but none hit Joseph, so that was a Godsend. What do you say? I know what I think, Bill: A Reservist of the Lancashire Fusiliers.
The Stuffing Wrong
“Never say die till you’re dead” is the only motto for us in the firing line, for every hour of the blessed day you’re expecting to have your head blown off by a German shell, and you wonder how on earth you managed to escape every time it hits something else instead of you. Their shells make awful havoc when they do burst, but it is not so often as you would think. There seems to be something wrong with the stuffing of them: Engineer Hughes, Royal Artillery.
Guarded!
When you do drop asleep you awaken suddenly and think you are being fired at. Twice now while I have been in battle, the man on my right and on my left has been killed. The last one next to me to be killed was poor ——. He was asking me where the enemy was when he got shot in the arm. Then he got hit in the stomach, and afterwards, poor chap, in the chest. The man on my right got hit, and then it came my turn. It is strange that the same thing should occur twice running. God is guarding me all right: Sergt. Greeley, South Lancashire Regiment.
A Scamper
The whistle has just blown to get under cover as there is an aeroplane up. I have just spotted it. All the fellows are running for shelter so as not to be seen and give the position away. I am inside the car, a covered van body. The shells are beginning to drop very close, so we’ll have to make a shift for better cover: they are screaming and howling like some of those funny fireworks, but you cannot see them and don’t know where they are going to land any minute. Our guns are firing on the aeroplane, but I’m afraid he is too high for them to reach him: Driver F. Clarkson, Artillery Transport Service.