What the "Boys" Did Over There / By "Themselves"

by Unknown

As the Germans always had patrols out as well, this was a ticklish business, as it was quite common for the patrols to meet and then there would be a little dirty work. On these occasions I always had a good supply of bombs, and one night when near a bridge of planks, which crossed the river, I heard the creaking and knew that a German patrol was crossing. The night being pitch dark, made it impossible for me to see them, so I whispered to the two privates to creep back to the bushes, which were a few yards away, and there we would wait for them. This we did in a few seconds. I could hear the German patrol walking through the grass toward us, and when I judged they were about twenty-five yards away I quickly removed the safety pin from the bomb and threw it in their direction.

By the time the first one burst, I had the pin removed from another one, and as the place was lit up by the flash of the bomb, I had a good view of the German fighting patrol, and so consequently the second bomb which I threw fell in the middle of them, as they were beating it for the bridge, and evidently some of them were hit, as they squealed like most Germans do when wounded. Knowing that the survivors would open fire in our direction as soon as they were over the bridge, we ran for cover to a bunch of trees, and there lay down for a few minutes until the firing had died down.

Telling my two chums to remain under cover until I returned, I crawled back to see if the Germans had returned for any of their wounded. Carefully maneuvering, I could hear the low moans of a wounded German, so I went to see what damage I had done. One German was dead and the other who was moaning was severely wounded in the legs, several pieces of the bomb hitting him in different places.

Seeing that he needed immediate assistance, and wishing to get him back to our lines for information purposes, I crawled back to my chums and told them to come back with me to the wounded German. When we reached him I told one of them to go down to the bridge and watch in case the Germans would return. The first thing I did was to kick the German's rifle out of the way, in case he wanted to use it when our backs were turned, and then proceeded to bandage his wounds. Then walking down to the bridge, I told my chum that everything was ready to carry the prisoner back, and after stumbling and carrying him for over a thousand yards, we reached our lines, and then handed him over to the stretcher bearers, who took him to the dressing station.

After a few weeks at Ploegstreet, we were again shifted to Passchendale, and as the winter was now on, things were much worse than on our previous visit. The first time we went to the front line we experienced on this occasion something new. Previously, in the trenches, we always had ration parties go back to the rear at night for supplies, and always received rations daily and a lot of rum in the morning.

The shell-fire being so bad made it too costly at Passchendale to send men back every night, so before we went up the line, we were served with three days' rations and a gasoline can full of water. In addition to this, every man had to carry 250 rounds of ammunition, several bombs, gas mask, trench coat and waterproof sheet, rifle, bayonet and grubber, sand bags, trench helmet and a shovel. I shall never forget the six miles march up to the front line with all the equipment. The shovel which I had tied to the middle of my back kept banging against my legs, and I was always scared of losing my can of water. Several men, while crossing the duck-boards fell off, and went up to their necks in mud, and if curses would have killed the Kaiser, he would have died that night.

At last we reached the front line and relieved the Devons, who had been up there three days—three days in a shell-hole, half full of water, bully beef, biscuits and cold water, tainted with gasoline for our rations, shell-fire continuously and occasionally a cloud of gas.

I do not think it possible for a person who has never experienced it to have the slightest imagination what suffering and torture we had to undergo on the Passchendale front. Many a wounded man, while staggering back over the duck-board, slipped off and was drowned, not having the strength to pull himself out of the mud.