We rushed up to them in our fury, and I drove my long bayonet at a German soldier. I struck at him blindly, but I do not know where I hit him, because at such a time you look after one German and then after another, so that you shall get many of them; but his own bayonet came at me and cut across my right fingers. You can see the scars here—but they are nothing.
It was hard and fierce work; but I was still well. I was tired and sleepy at the end, and was almost killed by bursting shrapnel. Pieces struck me, and one went through my right boot and between the toes. But that also was nothing.
The evening came, and it was just dark. That was October 1st. I had been in the trenches, and was lying down under some trees, resting. Firing was going on still, but we were indifferent to it, and I did not care until I was struck on the right arm by an explosive bullet, a dum-dum. I was lying there, bleeding, with my badly torn arm, for three-quarters of an hour; then some of my friends came and picked me up and gave me a drink and bandaged my arm. At nine o’clock a doctor came along and sent me to a church, which was being used as a hospital. There I spent the night, waiting for the morning, when I was to have an operation.
The morning came, and brought with it one of the strange adventures of a soldier in the war.
I was taken on a wheeled ambulance to a part of the church which was used as an operating-room, and there my torn arm was treated, without pain to me. A nun, who like her other sisters of mercy was a nurse, had the care of me, and she was wheeling me back to my bed.
There was the big entrance to the church near my bed, and as I was being wheeled I saw in that entrance many German soldiers, who were about to rush into the church and seize it.
Quick as thought my nurse wheeled me back, and rushed with me to a door at the back of the church, and out into the open air. She was quite calm, which was well for me, and she hurried me to an English motor ambulance, which was standing at the door and had one English soldier in.
The nun cried to the chauffeur, saying that the Germans were taking the church, and telling him to help her to push me into the ambulance.