A cool evening breeze promised a sharp night. Wrapped in an English trench-coat I leaned against the side of the trench and talked to little Schultz, the comrade of my Indian patrols, who, like a good friend, had turned up with four heavy machine-guns just where there was most need for them. Men of all companies sat on the fire-steps. Their features were youthful and clear-cut beneath their steel helmets. Their leaders had fallen and it was of their own impulse that they were here and in their right place. We set about putting ourselves in a state of defence for the night. I put my revolver and a dozen English bombs beside me and felt ready for all comers, even though they were the most pigheaded of Scotsmen.
Then there came a new outbreak of bombing from the right, and on the left German light-signals went up. From somewhere a faint hurrah came on the wind. That roused us. “They’re surrounded! They’re surrounded!” In one of these moments of enthusiasm that herald great exploits, everyone seized his rifle and rushed forward along the trench. After a short encounter with bombs a body of Highlanders made hurriedly for the road. There was no holding us now. In spite of warning shouts, “Look out, the machine-gun on the left is still firing!” we jumped out of the trench and in an instant reached the road, where there was a stampede of Highlanders. A long, thick wire entanglement cut off their retreat, so that like hunted game they had to run past us at fifty metres’ distance. On our side there broke out a tumultuous hurrah that must have struck their ears like the trump of the last judgment, and a hurricane of rapid fire. Machine-guns mounted in haste made a massacre of it.
While I was cursing at a jam that prevented me firing, I felt a blow on the shoulder. I turned round and saw the face of little Schultz, distorted with rage. “Look … they’re still firing, the cursed swine!” I looked where he pointed and saw a row of men in a little trench across the road, some loading, some shooting. In a moment, though, the first bombs were thrown from the right, and the whole trunk of one of them was flung into the air.
Reason bade me stay where I was while we finished off the enemy at our leisure with a few rounds. Instead of this I threw away my rifle and rushed with clenched fists on to the road between the two sides. Unluckily, I was still wearing the English coat and my cap with a red band. In the very transport of victory I felt a sharp blow on the left side of my breast. Night descended on me. I was finished!
I was convinced I was shot through the heart, yet I felt neither pain nor fear as I awaited my immediate death. When I found to my astonishment that I had not fallen, and discovered no hole in my shirt either, I turned on the enemy again. At that, a man of my company rushed up: “Sir, take off that coat!” and snatched the dangerous garment from my shoulders.
Another hurrah rent the air. From the right, where ever since the morning bombing had been going on, a number of Germans sprang over the road to our help, with a young officer in a brown waterproof at their head. It was Kius. By good luck he tripped over a low entanglement just as our English machine-gun fired its last shots, and the stream of bullets flew by over his head. The Scottish were annihilated in a few furious moments by rifle-fire and bombs. The road was strewn with dead, and what few survived were followed by our fire.
When I was standing talking to Kius in the captured trench I felt a moist feeling on my breast. Tearing open my shirt I saw that I had been hit just over the heart. The bullet had gone through me just above my Iron Cross, leaving two holes in my body and two in my shirt. There was no doubt that I had been shot for an Englishman by one of our own men (I strongly suspected the one who had torn off my coat) at a range of a few paces.
Kius bound me up and with great difficulty induced me to leave the battlefield at this interesting moment. We parted with “See you in Hanover!”
I chose myself an escort, looked for my map-case (it contained my diary) on the fire-swept road, and went back through the trench that we had fought our way along.
Our battle-cries had been so powerful that the enemy artillery had broken out at once. Over all the ground beyond the trench, and particularly on the trench itself, lay a barrage of unusual intensity. It was scarcely likely we could get safely through it. We went in jumps from traverse to traverse. Suddenly there was a shattering crash on the edge of the trench close by me. I felt a blow on the back of the head and fell forward stunned. When I came to, I was hanging with my head down over the breech of a heavy machine-gun and staring into a pool of blood that grew larger at an alarming rate. The blood poured so fast that I gave up all hope of survival. As my escort, however, assured me that nothing of my brain was to be seen, I picked myself up and went on. I had paid the penalty now for my folly in going into an attack without a helmet.
In
