A Sapper.—For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when repairing a bridge under heavy shell-fire for the advance of the artillery. He set a fine example to his comrades, and persevered with his work until it was completed, regardless of great personal danger.
It was hard to write the above, knowing that every man equally deserves those medals—the whole institution of awards ought to be abolished; except, perhaps, the V.C.
Oct. 12. Skipper returned from leave. Company still carrying on with roads. No. 2 Section out with me all night widening a bridge. It was a miserable night with heavy rain and howling wind, but the men worked cheerfully and a lot of work was done. So far as we are concerned all is now ready for the next attack.
Oct. 13. The attack is to start early on the morning of the 14th, and will be general along the Army front. The company received orders to move forward to-day, but I had to go on to Brigade before they started or before I knew exactly where they were going. I left Brigade shortly after dusk and returned to find two companies of Pioneers who were detailed to work under me to-morrow. I knew they were somewhere in the morass near the Menin road, but I blundered about for two hours before I found them. It required all my will power to keep me going, and when finally I saw their tents I was in the last stages of exhaustion—several times I must have been very near to them, but it was impossible to see more than 20 yards, and I had passed away again, going round and round in circles. I was so weak towards the end that I used to lie still in the mud for several minutes every time I fell, aching in every muscle, and wondering how many more times I could fall without dropping off to sleep.
It was after 1 a.m. when I left the Pioneers and there was a four-mile walk to where I thought the company would be. I wandered from battery to battery asking for news of them, but no one could tell me where they were. It was absolutely vital that I should find them before dawn, but at last my legs failed completely and I collapsed in the middle of the road. I crawled into a hole in the bank but, tired as I was, couldn’t sleep because of the cold. I was tormented with fears as to what would happen in the morning as I was the only officer who knew the gun tracks and almost everything depended on the clearing of those.
Oct. 14. Dawn came at last, cold, clear, and very beautiful, and at 5.35 the barrage came to spoil it. I set off towards the batteries in the hope of picking the men up there and found the Pioneers. I gave them work to go on with and turned to try to find my own fellows. The din from our own guns was terrific and the German retaliation seemed unusually heavy. The hard, persistent rattle of machine-gun fire in front seemed to indicate that we had stuck and a lot of wounded seemed to be coming back—some shells exploded very near me and I dropped into a ditch. I was cold, hungry, and tired, and at that moment would have sold my soul to have been out of it all. Above me the sky was serenely blue and peaceful, but eastwards it was shot with balls of multi-coloured smoke, just as if an invisible artist were dabbing splotches of colour on to a blue canvas.
Why, oh! why should I walk into that blazing inferno and die on a morning like this? These thoughts were actually in my mind when I saw Cooper coming down the road with the section—they thought I had been killed. I shall always remember standing there in the road and chewing ravenously at a hunk of bully which I held in my muddy fingers. It was my first meal for seventeen hours, and I never enjoyed one better.
Then we went forward, and I began to get hold of myself again as the work engaged my attention. I shall never forget one sight. A big highlander with the lower part of his face blown off walking down the railway with a prisoner in front of him—his right hand on the back of the German’s neck and his left hand holding his face together with the blood pouring through his fingers. Men coming back say the Huns stuck hard at first, but we are going well forward now.
To-day’s programme was roughly as follows:—
The Army Corps is to form bridgeheads across the River Lys for a defensive flank. One R.E. company takes all the Divisional pontoons and stands by to bridge when the infantry get to the river. One section of this to dash forward with Lewis guns and try to prevent destruction of existing bridges.