1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [169]
For most of the day Jimmy Vaughan had been lying wounded and helpless in the Patricias’ line through the clamour and tumult of the battle, but at last he too was out of it.
Pte. J. W. Vaughan.
Do you know how they got me out? It was the roughest, readiest thing you ever saw, but they had no other way to do it. There was no parados at the back of the trench – well, there practically wasn’t a trench by that time! But normally you build up the front to fire at the enemy and it helps to shelter you, and you also should build up the back of the trench a certain amount, what they call the parados, but we had no parados, none at all, and with nothing to conceal you the stretcher-bearers couldn’t get up, couldn’t carry you back anyway for that matter. So what they did was this. When the first-aid men got to me a couple of fellows said, ‘Now, Jimmy, there’s an artillery dug-out just fifty yards straight ahead. Now, you’ve got to crawl over there, crawl to that dug-out and get down in there.’ And do you know how they did it? One took hold of my shoulders, the other took hold of my legs – and one leg was wounded, remember! – and they threw me over the back of the trench. That’s the only way they could get me out. When I got my breath back and got myself together, I crawled along and crawled along, and it felt like fifty miles not fifty yards. Well, I made it to the dug-out and when I did get in it was full of wounded men, packed with wounded men, and the moans and groans all over were something terrible. I squeezed in and lay down where I could and waited there for the dark, for the stretcher-bearers to come up.
Well, eventually it did get dark and I remember the stretcher-bearers picking me up and getting me out of the dug-out and they carried me to the field dressing station which was about three-quarters of a mile away from the front line.There was a Red Cross ambulance truck there and the doctor happened to come out, and whether the dressing station was full up or not I don’t know, but he looked at me and he said, Tut him in the ambulance and when she’s loaded, take him to Vlamertinghe.’ So they took us through Ypres to Vlamertinghe and when we got there, the whole street as far as your eye could see was nothing but stretchers and blankets and walking wounded with blankets over their shoulders, and there must have been half a dozen doctors or more working flat out.*
Darkness was a long time falling on that fine May evening and when it did come it brought little respite from the flash of the guns and the thunder of explosions. The air was heavy with fumes and smoke that thickened as they mingled with the night mist. The situation was still desperate but the Patricias were now in touch with the 85th Brigade, for fresh troops had succeeded in advancing a short distance and stiffening the last few survivors of the earlier advance in their forward position, while across the ridge near Mouse Trap Farm where the hard-pressed Northumberland Fusiliers were still standing firm, as late as 7.30 in the evening the 1st Royal Warwicks and the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers had extended the front and even dashed forward to push the enemy back. Coming after the advance of the 85th Brigade this feat so unsettled the Germans that they actually abandoned some positions they had captured and drew back. It was some small encouragement and these precious footholds made it possible in the hours of darkness to form a tenuous line between the flanks. It was a flimsy enough bulwark and it ran a full three-quarters of a mile behind the front-line positions of that morning, but it was complete. The gap was closed. The tension had slackened.
It would be hours, even days before, they could begin to count the cost but already it was obvious that it had been enormous.