The first wave was now well in front, and I was with my right flank team in the second wave. We came up on the right of "C" Co., just as they were preparing to dig in.
Lieut. Dalley was about ten yards in front of his platoon giving orders to his men to dig in, when I saw him take a turn round and drop. I rushed out and picked him up. He told me to go on and never mind him. It was a dry day and there were quite a few bullets striking close to us, but at the time I did not seem to know, what they were so I got hold of Dalley and brought him back to a shell hole where our boys were digging in, and turned him over to their care. By this time I saw that "D" Co., had started to dig in, so I took my guns along and placed them in a shell hole about 20 yards in front of where our boys were digging. It was now about six p.m. The aeroplanes were over our heads sounding their horns and we were burning our signals.
After placing my team I came back and found that Lieut. Dennis Stairs was wounded on the arm and leg. I bandaged him up, but he persisted in staying in and "carrying on" with his work altho the colonel wanted him to go out. He has the Military Cross and I must say he deserved it. I also found that Major Brooks had been killed and that Major Nutter was acting O.C. of "D" Co. I reported to the colonel who was in the front line, and he asked me to take out the prisoners. There were about thirty-five of them, and I was to turn them over to the 26th Battalion, which was supposed to be in close support. There were a couple of chaps who were slightly wounded, going out as escort. We went out right thru the village but no sign of the 26th.
We saw a couple of their scouts who told us that the battalion was a little in the rear of us, but as it was getting dark we decided to send them out in charge of the wounded runners. The Huns were so demoralized that they really did not need any escort. Just before they left I saw Lieut. Wetmore stick his head out of a shell hole. He had been badly wounded in the head, so he also went out with the prisoners. I then started on my way back to the front line. Going thru the village we came across two Huns carrying a wounded Hun. We took them prisoners and turned them over to Sergt. Anderson of "C" Co. I then saw Sergt. Laird of "B" Co. and got about 30 bombs from him and took them up to my front line gun and came back to visit my left flank gun, which was still with "C" Co. While I was talking to Sergt. Weir there was a message came to me from Major Nutter to get my left gun up and place it out in front. I went to the left flank to carry out my order, and found my gun and ammunition scattered around the sunken road not damaged. But my team was gone, so I hunted around and got another team together and placed them out in "No Man's Land." If Fritz had to counter attack us that night he would have got an awful reception, for we had quite a few machine guns out in front and everybody was in good spirits and keeping a good look out.
We found out by this time we had lost quite a few of our best officers; out of our company we had lost one of the finest men that ever went over. He was a man that no matter how hard the bombardment, he was always normal and would never get excited—that was John Stairs. The O.C. of "B" Company, Colonel Flowers was also missing. He was not with us very long, but everybody thought a lot of him. It was splendid for a man of his age to come out and volunteer as a platoon commander as he did, and he deserves all the credit that can be given to him. We had a few others killed and missing, but taking everything into consideration and the objective that we had taken, we had come out very lucky.
Our boys were pretty well dug in by 12 that night. It was hard digging, about a foot of earth, then flint and underneath the flint was chalk.
