Aug. 4. ——over the ridge just before dawn I got dead in line with a German M.G. firing straight down the road. I don’t think it was clear enough for them to see me, but the bullets whizzed past first on my left side and then on my right. I had to lie down for several minutes and watch them kicking up sparks on the road a few yards ahead—most unpleasant, and I found it another indication that my nerves are slowly giving out.
Aug. 5. Heavy barrage in reply to a raid by the Division on our right interfered with work and caused several casualties among the carrying parties.
Aug. 6. The men had a night’s rest, but I was out all night with two sappers laying out tapes and notice boards in preparation for the attack on the 8th. Several times we had to go well out into No Man’s Land, and once I was quite lost for about half an hour.
Aug. 7. Was out all night trying to get some work out of the Americans, but found it a hard job as they are not yet accustomed to working under shell and machine-gun fire, and are very nervous. Among our own men I would have considered their behaviour rank mutiny, but I kept them at it until 3 a.m. and got 150 yards done. Have never been so unpopular or so violently cursed in my life before.
In the course of the wire we came across a shell-hole with a mule and three rotting Frenchmen in it, and the Americans were very worried that they had not been buried!
Poor devils, they have a lot to learn.
The Merryway Attack
The events that follow are necessarily somewhat confused, both from their own nature and from the fact that I was not able to set them down until some ten days after they occurred. They fell out somewhat as follows:—
The Merryway had once been a decent road, but after the fighting in June there was little left but a shattered track running at right angles to the main lines of trenches. The Huns had pushed out a very considerable salient on both sides of this track, and as their ground was rather higher than ours they were able to make life very unpleasant for every one around them.
With the threat of more German attacks still hanging over us and the men quite worn out, the Staff decided that we must keep up our morale by trying to lower that of the Huns. An attack on the Merryway Salient was decided upon as the best way of doing this.