Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 11]
It was well nigh impossible in the dark to keep in exact formation but what we did and how we did it will appear in the next paragraph. My company, Don Coy, had to take the second objective. We were not to take part in the fighting in the first line, but to go straight on. Some of us did this, some eagerly got to work in the first line but we nearly all succeeded in reaching the second line.
To come back to the story. Once over the top we were committed to the great adventure. Our barrage was intense and we kept well up against it. Soon the enemy put down a barrage on No Man's Land. Shells crashed down and screamed, dirt was thrown in all directions. The air was lit up by the myriad flashes of the bursting shells and the driving charges from the guns. Flares too from the enemy lines added their quota of light in turning the night into day. Every now and then there would be a second when the immediate neighbourhood was lit by none of these and then the gloom that surrounded us would be more intense than usual.
In the lightening flashes one caught glimpses of phantom figures some with rifles at the slope, some with them at high port, heads held high in the air striding through the hell that surrounded them. So must the hero who freed the Valkyrie have strode through the ring of living flame that surrounded her.
Even in this wild storm of shell fire it was possible at times to differentiate between shells. One shell there was that seemed to rend asunder and pour its load of iron on the earth below. One could at times catch the swish of the "whizzbang" as it passed a foot or so overhead, one could easily pick the H.E.Shrap. of the enemy and the burst off the larger H.E. shells.
The noise overhead apart from the bursting of the innumerable shells recalled the swish of the wings of countless thousands of birds flying above. So closely did the shells seem to move, so great was the weight of metal passing in either direction, that one involuntarily wondered why one barrage did not crash into the other.
What were a man's thoughts as he walked through this hell let loose on earth. His mind was free from fear. He simply went on, not troubling about the risks, being bent on getting through and to grips with the enemy. There were times when a shell landing perhaps a few feet away brought him up suddenly with a jerk but after that he went on again. I passed an Australian and a German each transfixed by the other's bayonet . I saw a few prisoners coming back and then I was across the first objective and well on my way to the second.
Our officers who had been wonderful while they had lasted were nearly all casualties. Some of us were mixed with other Companies and each soldier was practically working on his own. There was little fighting, the barrage had been too severe. At last we reached our objective - we passed over it. The trench had been completely obliterated by the hail of shell fire. We wandered through and around the wood and then an officer came along who told us where to make our trench. We dug in and soon had ourselves in comparative safety. Just a few yards ahead on the edge of the wood was a battery of 5.9's and lying out between us and the guns was one of the gunners.
The memory of the stunt is a blur. It unconsciously calls up a picture of a terrific thunder storm on a pitch black night. One can recall the flashes lighting the sky and just a few events that happened.
Here one heard a chap calling for assistance and knowing it was contrary to orders one saw a boy walk over and bind up the wounded man. In another place the Germans had been caught in the dugout and a Mill's had accounted for them. Here several had been bayoneted