That rush after the Germans and bagging them was exciting work. It was successful and everything seemed to be going very well. But there was a nasty surprise in store for me and one which very nearly ended my career as a fighting man. I had really a miraculous escape.
I had charge of about four prisoners, and kept them well in front of me, so that they could not rush me. I kept them covered with my rifle all the time, and as I had ten rounds in my magazine I knew that they wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance if they tried any German tricks on me—I could easily have finished the lot before they could have got at me.
As I was driving the prisoners I felt as if some one had come up and punched me on the ear. I did not know whether I had been actually hit by somebody or shot, but I turned my head and at once fell to the ground. I was swiftly up again on my feet and scrambled about. I knew that I was hurt, but the thing I mostly cared about just then was my bag of prisoners, so I handed them over to another man, and he took them in. I then found that I had been shot in the neck by a bullet. It had gone in at the collar of the jacket, at the back of the neck—here’s the hole it made—and through the neck and out here, where the scar is, just under the jaw. A narrow shave? Yes, that’s what the doctor said—it had just missed the jugular vein. The shot bowled me out, but it was a poor performance by the German who fired, because he could not have been more than three hundred yards away, and being six foot one I made a big target at that short distance. Anyway, he missed me and I was told to go to a barn not far away which had been turned into a hospital, bed mattresses having been placed on the floor. Here my kit was taken off me and I was looked after at once, my kit being given to a North Lancashire man who had lost his own and had been without one for three days. He had been in a small battle and had had to take his choice between dropping his kit and being caught; so he got rid of his kit and was able to escape. When he left the barn he went into the firing line, but he only lasted about ten minutes there. I had seen him leave
and I saw him brought back by the stretcher-bearers. As soon as he was inside the barn he asked where I was, and he was told and was laid down close to me. “Look here, old chap,” he said pleasantly, “if you’d only been ten minutes later I shouldn’t have been here, because I shouldn’t have got your kit and gone into the firing line and got hit.”
Perhaps he was right. He might have escaped; but as it was he had been shot through both legs.
I didn’t like being in the barn and out of the fighting. It was better to be in the firing line, with all its excitement and the knowledge that you were doing your bit to help things along and drive the Germans back to the best place for them, and that’s Germany; but our officers, who never lost a chance of cheering and helping us, came in when they could to see how we were getting on. During the afternoon my company officer, Captain Brocklehurst, and the adjutant, came in to see how things were going. Captain Brocklehurst saw me and said, “There are not many of the company left; but we’re doing wonderfully well. We’ve killed a good many of the Germans and taken about five hundred prisoners.” That was good news, very good, but it was even better when the captain added, “And we’re pushing them back all the time.”
The guns were booming and the rifles were crackling all around us while we were lying in the barn, and wounded men were being constantly brought in, keeping the doctors and the ambulance men terribly busy—and you can imagine what it must have meant for the Germans if it was like that for us; because we fought in open order, so that we were not easy to hit, whereas the Germans were in their solid formation, which meant that they could not advance against the British fire without being mown down.