About the centre of this open strip was the dried bed of a stream between deeply worn banks and this afforded the only protection on the way across. When the light was just right, we moved out to the edge of the bar. I gave my men a few last instructions. It was time to go. I took one last look across the ground which was literally covered with shell splinters and deeply furrowed.
“Rush!” I yelled. We went forward in a thin line.
I saw the expected flash of the guns.
“Straight toward them!” I shouted; and we all ran madly in the direction from which the shells were coming.
“Down!” I roared with every bit of voice that was in me, at the same time flopping down flat on my face.
There was a terrific crash! It seemed all around me. I could not tell whether it was in front or behind. I was surprised that I was not hurt. I heard groaning behind me. One of my men was wounded. There was not another sound. I thought the others must have kept on running despite my instructions, and were now in the little bed of the stream waiting for me. I dared not move. I had to lie as one dead or the guns would have begun crashing again and they would get me and the wounded man behind me. Flare rockets illumined the sky. I prayed that the man who was hurt would lie still. If he hadn’t done so it would have been all over with both of us.
Half an hour I lay there in the mud until the rockets were no longer going up and I thought it safe to move. I crept a few feet over the ground. My hands were upon the body of a man, but he was not groaning. Yet the groaning continued from nearby. I realized that one of my men had been killed. I crept farther in the direction of the groaning. I bumped into a huddled mass. It was another body.
Still I groped around. I had found three now. At last I reached the man who was hurt. He wasn’t moving, only groaning. I thought that there were others of the little party who needed help. In the darkness I wriggled here and there. I found another body. That made four. Then five—six—seven—and so on till I found eleven. There were only two of us left—the wounded man and myself!
I stood up despairing and like one lost. I almost wished that I had been one of the eleven who had “crossed the bar” once for all. I got the wounded man onto my shoulder in the style which is known as “the fireman’s carry,” and started back with him, walking erect. I had forgotten the danger of shells. Luckily it was inky dark and I was not seen.
I staggered against a part of our barbed wire entanglements. I called for help. Four men crawled over the parapet to meet me. They dragged the wounded man to the edge of the parapet. He was still groaning faintly though he lay as one dead. As we lifted him over the edge of the trench, the groaning ceased. He was dead! I alone of the thirteen had come back alive!