During the whole of that bloody night my hardest job was to restrain the men in that moment of semi-victory; for it was still two hours until dawn. Nine out of the nineteen of us were either dead or dying, and all the rest of us were damaged in some way. Throughout the whole night I had never thought of anything but death. Relief, I knew, was impossible—if we surrendered they would kill us, and I never dreamed that we could really hold them off till dawn. Writing now, it would be easy to imagine impressions which I never really experienced, but I can safely say that throughout the whole night I calmly regarded myself as a dead man. It seemed quite natural that I should be, and I can’t remember that I had the slightest regret. It even seems now that in some queer way I was distinctly happier and more tranquil than I had ever been in my life before. I felt nobler, mightier, than any human being on earth, and death seemed welcome as the only fitting end. Recalling some of my previous entries on the subject of war, I cannot understand my feelings on this occasion and can only repeat that it was so—perhaps something of
“The stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.”
It was therefore almost with a feeling of annoyance, of having been cheated of something, that I saw the first streaks of gray beyond Kemmel. I thought they would still make a last effort and waited, but we shivered in vain. In the semi-light we managed to get an odd shot at some of them who had been behind us as they went round to the front—we shot two or three more this way. Then I left my sergeant in charge and went back for a crawl to see what I could find. It was almost light now, and after about half an hour I came across a picket. They firmly believed we were all dead, and said so, and once more that odd feeling of annoyance returned. I remembered that during the night I had visualised the Brigade report on the whole business: “Their Lewis gun was heard firing until early in the morning but it was impossible to reach them.”
However, I went back, left some fresh men in the post and brought my fellows out, leaving orders for the dead to be brought down during the day if possible. As we went back past Brigade I dropped in to report. The General had apparently been up all night and looked very worried. He insisted on seeing the men. They were lying in the mud outside, bleeding and swearing—an awful but a sublime picture. He was deeply moved, and several times under his breath I heard him say, “Marvellous, marvellous, wonderful.” Afterwards, I was told that there were tears in his eyes when he went back into the dug-out. He has had an awful time, poor beggar.
Aug. 12. Had my face dressed and slept like a baby during the day. At night Brigade reported once more that we held a line of connected posts, and again we went out to try to strengthen them. My party started to wire the Merryway post and barricade the road, and Day went forward with a party on the right. When he got forward to where our wire should have been he found a German party well dug-in—fully 100 yards more forward than they were expected to be. They turned a gun on Day’s party and threw about a dozen bombs at them but he got all his fellows back with only two casualties, and these were brought in later. On my side the covering party were so nervous as to be absolutely useless, so I sent them back, and after that my own revolver was the only cover which the men had.
I was crawling about some 50 yards in front of the party when a light went up and I spotted three Huns crouching in a shell-hole with a machine-gun. I had no bombs, so I went back and told the infantry officer, but he wouldn’t do anything. We ceased work about 25 yards away from them.
We found the mutilated body of an infantry officer who was killed on the 11th and brought it in.
On calling at H.Q. on the way back we were informed, as we now knew to our cost, that our posts were all much farther back than was at first thought, and in some places the Huns were even on the near side of our wire. But for our great good luck in getting bombed we should probably have gone out and wired between the German outposts and their main line.
I have seldom known the line to be in a more chaotic state, and I think one more attack would just about put us beyond the count. Every one is nervous, and no one knows where anybody else is.