The lieutenant had scarcely finished speaking when I saw Major Robb himself roll over on his side. A poor lad named Armstrong, with four more of our men, crept up to attend to the major, but a piece of shrapnel struck the lad on the head and killed him—and other men were falling all around me.
There was no help for it now—we had to get back to our trenches, if we could; that was our only chance, as the Germans were hopelessly greater in number than we were. So we made our way back as best we could, and we took with us as many of the wounded as we could get hold of.
Time after time our men went back for the wounded; but, in spite of all we could do, some of the wounded had to be left where they had fallen.
We got back, the survivors of us, to the trenches, and we had hardly done so when we heard a shout. We looked up from the trenches, and saw Major Robb on the skyline, crawling a little way.
Instantly a whole lot of us volunteered to go and fetch the major in; but three were picked out—Lance-Corporal Rutherford, Private Warwick, and Private Nevison.
Out from the trenches the three men went; up the rising ground they crawled and crept; then, at the very skyline, Rutherford and Nevison were shot dead, and Warwick was left alone. But he was not left for long. Private Howson went to help him, and he actually got to the ridge and joined him, and the two managed to raise the major up; but as soon as that had been done the officer was shot in a vital part, and Warwick also was hit.
More help went out, and the major and Warwick were brought in; but I grieve to say that the poor major, who was loved by all of us, died soon after he reached the trenches.
That furious fight had cost the Durhams very dearly. When the roll was called we found that we had lost nearly 600 men, and that in my own company only one officer was left. This was Lieutenant Bradford, one of the bravest men I ever saw. At one time, when we had lost a young officer and a man with a machine-gun, Lieutenant Bradford worked the gun himself. I am sorry to say that he was killed in another battle later on.
Now I am going to leave the Valley of the Aisne and get round to Flanders, where we found ourselves near Ypres, faced by a big force of Germans.
Again we were with our friends the West Yorkshires—they were on our right, and on our left we had the East Yorkshires, so that there were three North-country regiments together. Near Ypres we soon had to carry out a smart bit of work which, in a way, proved very pathetic. The Durhams were ordered to take a small village, and we went for it. We reached a farmhouse, and there we found about a score of women and children. Some of our men were sent into the house, but they could not make the women and children understand English. The poor souls were terrified; they had had to do with Germans, and as they were not familiar with our uniforms they thought we were Germans too—another lot of the breed from which they had suffered so much.