Blown Up!
I picked one chap up who had been shot, and asked for someone to come and help me, and the two of us were picking him up when a shell burst between us. We were blown up in the air, and turned a somersault, and it is marvellous that neither of us was hurt. The chap we were picking up was not so lucky, for he was hit a second time. However, we got him up and took him back to the ambulance. The Germans finally blew down our barricade and everything that was movable, and we retired to the trenches, three miles away: A Lance-Corporal of the Royal Marines.
Disagreeable
I have had some close shaves. Once I looked up for a second at an aeroplane flying overhead, and a couple of bullets just missed me by a hair’s-breadth. One day I was filling my water-bottle at the stream when it was shot out of my hand, and another bullet ripped into my coat and was stopped against the photos of you and the children. Last night in the trenches I dreamt I was back home again and was playing with little Gracie and telling her some stories of the fighting: Pte. Hamson, King’s Royal Rifles.
Green Fireworks
I have had the narrowest escape of my life. The horse I was riding got knocked out altogether by a shell, and while I was getting another one to put in its place a shell came and put three of us out of action. I managed to scramble out of it for about two miles, when I dropped unconscious, and the next place I found myself in was a French hospital with enough bandage round my head to make a girl a dress. You ought to see the sight of a battlefield; it is just like the Crystal Palace on a firework day but for the men and horses dropping: Driver T. Tyler, Royal Field Artillery.
Heavy Fire
The second day we were under heavy fire, and we had to retreat; but the next morning we regained the trenches. Then we came under heavy fire again, and it was at this time that I received my wound. “Have you got it, old boy?” said my mate, George Hunter. Only about ten minutes afterwards Hunter himself received in rapid succession five shots in the thigh and groin. He quickly died from hæmorrhage, and lies buried in France. I myself had to lie upon the ground for eleven hours before I was carried to an ambulance wagon: Pte. Whitehead, Norfolk Regiment.