In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War

by Unknown

It was on April 12th that Morrow actually won his Cross. At that time we were near Messines, and the trench warfare was being carried on with great energy on both sides. Shell fire from the Germans was shattering and wrecking some of our own trenches, so much so that British troops were being buried alive in some places.

Several soldiers had been knocked out by shell fire and buried in the fallen earth. You can easily imagine what it means—men are in a trench, which is really a sort of vast open grave, and shell fire shatters the earth which is around and simply buries the men. So it happened on the 12th of April, and Morrow saw and knew it. Just as he had acted when he went and filled the rum-jar and our water-bottles with water, so he acted now—he gave no thought to himself. Out he went, not once, but many times, into a bullet-swept zone, till he reached the trenches which had been knocked out of shape by German shells, and in the rubbish of which his comrades were lying buried and helpless. He dug them out and pulled them out, and one by one he brought the senseless fellows into safety. That was the deed for which Morrow got the Victoria Cross; but in reality he had won the honour time after time. He was killed at “Plug Street,” as we called the place. A piece of shell struck him on the head and he died immediately.

The most extraordinary things happened to some of our fellows, and there were escapes from death or capture so strange that you could not credit them unless you saw them. I will mention one particular incident that comes into my mind. I saw one of our motor ambulances going along a road. There was nothing unusual in that, of course, because we have many motor ambulances and there are many roads, but in this case the road led straight into some German trenches. Before it was possible to do anything or raise an alarm the driver had blundered into the very midst of the enemy, and there he was, with his ambulance, just about as much amazed to see the Germans as they were to set eyes on him. They ought, of course, to have bagged both the driver and his vehicle; but he sprang down, restarted his engine and began to run away. The Germans pulled themselves together, and every man who could bring a rifle to bear fired on the retreating ambulance; but luckily the driver had a fair lot of protection, and though hundreds of bullets struck the bonnet of the car not one of them touched him, and he got safely away and went on his journey. It was a remarkable escape, and all who saw it were glad that the plucky chap got so well out of the trouble which had followed his mistake.

One night I was on sentry in the trenches when the sentry next to me gave the alarm. He had no sooner done that than he saw something crawling over the trenches. He did not waste a second—he lunged out with his bayonet, and then found that he had driven it into a German’s shoulder. The German was made a prisoner, then it was discovered that he had lost his way in the dark and had got into our trench. When we searched him we found that he had a revolver and a long knife; but he was miserably clad, his feet being wrapped up in newspapers, as he had no socks. He said he was glad to be captured.

Our chaps sometimes make the same mistake—a very easy one, as the German trenches were so close to our own. Two of our men went, one dark night, to get some hot tea in dixies. On their return they got into a communication trench and lost their way; but at last, thinking they were home again, they shouted down a trench, “Hi, Bill, take the tea!”

Instantly bullets were flying around them, and realising that they were not back home at all, but had reached an enemy trench, they dropped the hot tea on the Germans, then ran for it and got safely off.

I had been a long time at the front before I was detailed to go back with the transport and bring up the officers’ rations every night. We used to gallop as hard as we could till we came to a bridge, which the Germans could see and did their best to smash with shells. There was a sharp turning which a priest had called the “Devil’s Corner,” saying it was worse than hell because of the continual shelling. We were forced to take this road, because it was the only way to reach the trenches.

At night the Germans threw a searchlight on the “Devil’s Corner,” and as soon as ever they saw us appear they shelled us, sometimes as many as four shells coming together; but we dashed on so furiously that they could not get us, nor did they catch us when we ran the gauntlet coming back, though they used to get an average of a wagon a night. In addition to this deadly corner we had three burnt villages to tackle; but we were always lucky, and our men did not come to grief.

We used to go right up to the trenches, only about twenty-five yards from them, with the horses and wagons, and there was one specially dangerous spot which had to be passed. This was where there was a gap in a hedge, which the Germans knew of quite well and could see. They knew that at night our troops went to the gap to get water, and so in the daytime they trained machine-guns on the spot, and when darkness came they blazed away in the hope of wiping some of our men out. I have known these guns whirr for five minutes without a break, sending out a fire so horrible that nothing could live under it. We lost several men at this gap, and were forced to make an opening in the hedge somewhere else.