After leaving the Mess and that infernal warrant, I calmed down somewhat and was able to get my mind on to the work ahead—my old campaigning instincts began to return and I became once more a scout, clear-headed and fearless. It was a grand night for my work, miserable and stormy, with rain and hail blowing in the gusty wind. Arrived in the outposts it dawned on me that Stephens would be quite useless, and I couldn’t remember why I had ever decided to take him—if things went all right he could do nothing, and if they found us it would be two corpses instead of one. He pleaded to come with me, and I had to hurt his feelings to get rid of him.
I got all the information I could from the outpost officers, said good-bye to them, and went forward towards the river. It was then about half a mile in front of me, and separated from our posts by a belt of marsh and flooded fields. This belt was traversed by two roads with a small bridge in each where they crossed a stream running parallel to the main river. I had to investigate these two roads and bridges and the main bridge where the two roads joined across the river. It was my plan to work up one road, look at the river, and the main bridge, and then return down the other road.
There was practically no cover on the road, but the night was dark and I felt fairly safe along the water’s edge. I calculated that I had gone 200 yards and then I waited, as I was a little nervous at having heard nothing, and felt certain that there would be posts along the road. After five minutes I heard the tapping of a mallet on stakes, and knew that they were wiring some 200 yards down the road. Still I waited, but I had no clear notion why. I assumed, of course, that there were protective troops on this side of the wiring party, but it was instinct rather than reason which made me halt. I was just preparing to go forward again when two men rose out of the road not 15 yards away, walked a few paces up and down the road, and then appeared to lie down again. I had all but walked on to their rifles and my heart thumped crazily. There was nothing for it but to take to the water and the marsh. I retreated 20 yards and waded in, holding my revolver over my head. It was deathly cold, and after about 100 yards I nearly gave it up—at times the water was up to my shoulders and I seemed to make no progress. The noise of the working party guided me, and eventually I judged that I was behind them and therefore about in line with the first small bridge.
About this time I realised that another five minutes in the water would kill me, and I struck back for the road, regardless of everything except a desire to get on dry land. Unfortunately, I blundered into a colony of waterfowl, and they flew up all round my head, making a terrific noise. My heart stood still and I waited again—was there a scout among those Huns on the road, who could read the meaning of the terrified waterfowl? Apparently not, for I still heard the regular tapping of the mallets, and several minutes later I was lying exhausted by the roadside. I half emptied my flask and pushed on up the road—I was right in the middle of the Huns now and crawling on my stomach as I did not know how near or far they might be—I thought the cold would kill me, and wondered what the Huns would think to find a dead Englishman inside their lines. To my unspeakable delight there was no one on the bridge, and I was able to make a thorough examination. I laughed at the Huns working solemnly down the road, and for a second forgot my terrible condition. Here I think my mind went a little dull, as I blundered straight on down the road until I had almost reached the river and the main bridge. It was sheer madness, but I would certainly have perished without the movement to aid my circulation. I remember thinking grimly that it would be just my fate to die of a cold after all that I had been through. I found a lot of Huns round the bridge, so I struck the river about 100 yards above it and then worked down under cover of the banks. I spent some twenty minutes under the bridge and all the time I could hear their voices in the darkness above me—the meaning of their words was drowned by the noise of the wind and the rain.
Now I had to get back down the other road before it began to grow light, and, as I truly imagined, deliver my message before I died. Half a mile inside the Hun lines, after spending two hours up to my shoulders in water on a November night my condition is better imagined than described. I ate a sodden mass of crumbs and bully that had once been sandwiches in my pocket and finished the rum. I was nearly caught in getting to the downstream side of the bridge and lay shivering under a hedge for several minutes while a party marched by within three paces of my head. I think they were the working party off the road and I noticed that it was beginning to grow lighter—luckily the storm grew worse. Eventually I got on to the second road and crawled back along the water’s edge until I came to my last bridge—there was a German machine-gun party sitting right in the middle of it. My brain was still perfect, but I had lost all sense of feeling in my body—I wanted to cry—they sat there between me and England, and I believe I had some idea of getting up and asking them to let me go home. For a few minutes I had no more will power than a child. Then some of our shells came over and I could hear them bursting on the road over the bridge. There was only one way back and that was as I had come—through the water. I forgot all about the stream and waded in. The cold seemed to pull me together, although, God knows, nothing could be colder than my own body. There was a bit of dry land between the flood and the stream, but I got across without being seen—I was keeping close to the bridge in the hope of seeing something of it as I passed. If I couldn’t wade the stream I was done, but I determined to try even if my head was under water and I had to hold my breath. It was not more than five feet deep in the centre and I got across and so over the bank into the flood on the far side. I had still to keep to the water, as I was afraid there would be a patrol on the road in advance of the people on the bridge. A few of our shells were still falling on the road, and I could hear the angry hisses as the red-hot bits of steel rained into the water round about. I did about 200 yards like this and then I gave up—it was either the road or collapse and drown in the water. I got on to the road, worked back carefully until I felt safe, and then ran like the devil until I knew I was inside our posts. When I stopped I nearly fainted, so I set off again—my head pulling me up into the clouds like a bubble and my legs holding me to the road as if they were tons of lead.
Eventually I came across some gunners and they marvelled at the whisky I drank. I told them I had been out scouting and slipped into some water—I didn’t really know what had happened just at the time—I had vague impressions of a mass of water and some Germans sitting on a bridge, refusing to let me go home. Then I fell asleep, just sat down bang on the mess floor and collapsed.
They woke me after a couple of hours, lent me a horse, and directed me to the company.
To-morrow I shall be in England.
Nov. 9. In the paper this morning there is a brief announcement that the Second Army is across the Scheldt. I was proud to see it and felt amply rewarded for my terrible night in the water. It has left no apparent after-effects, so there must have been more resistance left in my old carcass than I gave myself credit for.
Nov. 11. It is over. These last few days I have hardly dared to hope for it, and now that it has come I can hardly realise exactly what it means. The thought of going back to it was killing me, and I have been suffering from the most ghastly nightmare dreams—sometimes I am stuck in the wire, unable to duck, with bullets whistling past my head—another time I am trying to run through knee-deep mud with the shell-bursts slowly overtaking me. I haven’t slept peacefully since my return, but think it will be better now.