Accordingly one Infantry Brigade and one Field Coy. R.E. went over on the night of August 8th, and under cover of a terrific bombardment surprised the Germans and gained practically all their objectives. All was quiet for two days, the Field Coy. put up quantities of barbed wire and the Staff went to sleep to dream of medals.
The morning of the 11th was cold and misty, and to our great consternation the Huns delivered a very heavy counter-attack. This was quite successful, and we were all driven back with the exception of one post which held out on the Merryway. Here about 30 Huns got held up against our wire and all surrendered, although most of the men wanted to shoot, because we were too weak to find an escort. However we sent them back with two men, but seeing that our flanks were gone and how weak the escort was, they strangled the two men and joined the fight. Everything was now completely mixed up, the gray-coated figures were all around, and odd groups of men were fighting detached battles for their own skins against heavy odds. Our telephone wire was cut, and rockets were useless because of the mist; the casualties were heavy, and it looked as if the line would go. Then I saw Bradley, a fearsome sight, with a piece of his scalp hanging over his ear and his face covered with blood, trying to collect some men. I joined him, and we got a few together and went forward again. In technical language I suppose we led a charge or counter-attack, but it never struck me in that way at all, and I’m sure we had no clear idea what we intended to do.
Bradley was mad, and we went at the first group of Huns we saw. There was a tussle, we killed two and the rest surrendered. Bradley collared one of these himself, a poor miserable kid not more than twenty, and I remember the sight of him put heart into us all.
In all we got forward about two hundred yards and got in touch with the Merryway post, although, of course, we were still a long way behind our original line.
This restored the line a little, and instead of pushing through the gaps on either side of us the Huns hesitated a little and finally dug in about 50 yards away. All the infantry officers were killed and every one was out of touch, so that the Huns were not followed up. During the day reliefs came up, and at night Brigade reported that we held a line of posts in touch with one another about half-way between our first and second positions.
I went up with a few men and some material to try to consolidate the position, but when I got to Merryway post everything was in absolute chaos and there was only a sergeant and six men in the post and absolutely at their last gasp. Apparently they had been attacked again during the day, and had only just kept off the Huns after suffering heavy casualties from trench mortars. It was obvious the Huns thought a lot of this post, and I felt sure they would try to take us during the night. I put all my men on and tried to strengthen the place with sandbags, and made it a little deeper by lifting some bodies out of the bottom. I had 19 men with 150 rounds each and 1 Lewis gun with several thousand rounds—this I placed at the end of the trench to fire up the track.
About 11.30 we were shelled heavily without sustaining casualties, and immediately afterwards a crowd of infantry—about 100 I think—made a dash at us, chiefly down the old track. The Lewis gun opened at once, and I was terrified to find that the Huns had a gun on our flank which was shooting straight at our gun and right into the trench. The gunner was killed at once and Cox wounded, so that the gun was silent. Then the infantry sergeant took it and was shot dead immediately. I shouted to the men to keep shooting at the infantry in front and I took the Lewis gun myself and turned it round at the German gun. I waited for him to shoot, and then fired at the flash and silenced him. I noticed that the men’s firing had died down, and on looking to the front I was relieved to see that the first attack was beaten off—we must have killed a lot, as they were right against the skyline—and there were a lot of them moaning about in front. I felt certain we could hold them if we could keep their gun quiet, so for the next twenty minutes we worked like fiends to raise some protection across the open end of the trench. Then they came again in a sudden rush, but I must have damaged their gun, and without that to help them we could turn our gun right into them and easily held them off. A small party sneaked close up to us on the left away from the gun and threw some bombs right into us, blowing an infantryman to bits and wounding a sapper. Then they shelled us steadily for half an hour and got one of the look-out men in the shoulder—another rifle useless. At this point we had our one piece of luck—found a rum jar with just enough in it to give each man a mouthful—it put new heart into us and helped us more than twenty reinforcements. Everything went quiet for a time, and in thinking things over I had an awful job to keep myself under control. The men were wonderful, but there were only 13 of us left and fully 200 Huns all round. During the lull Cox died in my arms—he was very game, but just before the end he sobbed like a child: “My wife and kiddie, oh God! sir, what’s going to happen to them?—poor kid, poor kid.” And so he died.
Shortly afterwards they came at us again, and thank God none of us realised how many there were. On the right where the gun was we held them off again, but we were hopelessly outnumbered, and a German officer and a small party actually got into our trench at the other end. I heard the row and, leaving the gun with Willis, was just in time to see a man kill the officer with his bayonet and the others cleared off again. They were very close all round us now, and as we could see nothing I told the men to keep their ammunition and then split them up, some to shoot forward and some to shoot back. I was frightened that we should be bombed, and surely enough they started, but the throwing was rotten.
And then once more they tried us. A bomb came right in the trench and laid out two more men, splashing me with blood. We shot like fiends and the gun was nearly red-hot, but they were too many. About eight men got into the trench and then we all went mad. It would be impossible for me to give an accurate description because there was just one fierce wild tussle, they trying to get at Willis and that blessed gun and we trying to keep them off. We were too mixed to shoot; they used a sort of life-preserver and we used our bayonets taken off the rifles. A German about my own size slipped into the trench behind me and I just turned in time to duck under a swing from his preserver. What I was doing I shall never know, but by instinct I got my left hand on his throat, and before I knew what had happened I had got the bayonet dagger-wise a good six inches into his chest. He went down without a groan. There was no one in front of me and I turned to find a big Hun with his back to me and a life-preserver raised to hit McDonald, who had his back to the Hun, over the head. If I had had sense I would have stuck the bayonet into his back, but I was absolutely wild and dropped it. Before the Hun could strike I got my hands on his throat and we fell down together. I fell underneath but got on top and pressed until I thought my fingers would break. He was terribly strong and once scratched a great piece out of my left cheek. Gradually he weakened, and I kept my fingers on his throat until he died.
Much the same thing had happened to all the other men except one, who got badly mauled about the head and died shortly afterwards. For a moment I felt we could fight the whole German army, especially when I saw McDonald smash in a German head with the rum jar. Now the survivors were shouting for help, but that blessed Willis (ex jail-bird) was sitting with the gun out in the open, regardless of everything, swearing like hell, and none of the Huns seemed anxious to accept the invitation. We were all clean crazy, and I even had a job to keep the men in the trench. McDonald said something about Cox’s missus, and wanted to kill ten of the “bloody bastards.”