Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
In one of our rearguard actions an officer was saying to me, “I am not good enough to die yet.” He had not spoken the words before he was shot through the brain, and the man on the left had his head blown off by a shell. You know I wasn’t severely religious, but I’m inclined to be now: Pte. Watts, 4th Grenadiers.
A “Charmed Life”
I bore a charmed life. A bullet went through the elbow of my jacket, another through my equipment, and a piece of shrapnel found a resting-place in a tin of bully-beef which was on my back. I was picked up eventually during the night, nearly dead from loss of blood: A Private of the Black Watch.
The Seventh Time
I am all right, but very nearly got shot in a trench by the Germans. I got on my knees to dig a bit of earth to get comfortable when they spotted me. Then about ten shots came in quick succession. One sent my cap off. Down I got, and jolly quick. This is the seventh time I have escaped being hit: Pte. Oliver, Yorkshire Light Infantry.