1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [299]
Bill Worrell was also on his way to hospital. So was Walter Bagot-Chester. Arthur Agius had miraculously survived. All three had been in the attack north of Lens across the old battlefield of Neuve Chapelle. They called it the action of Piètre and the attack at least had a worthwhile objective, for if they could gain a foothold on the Aubers Ridge, link up with the troops attacking on their left at Bois Grenier, and join in with a victorious advance at Loos on their right, they would have been well on the way to Lille. Like the men who fought at Hooge, they were back where they started, but the first two German lines had already been captured when the 12th Rifle Brigade went ‘over the top’ for the first time.
Rfn. W. Worrell.
At about 8 a.m. on the 25th the order was passed down for 9 Platoon to move up to the front line. Those ten hours of waiting, up to our knees in mud, had certainly dampened our fighting spirit. As we reached the front line I had a shock. My Company Commander was being held up by his runner. He had been shot through the forehead while standing on the firestep encouraging the company as they went over. He must have been killed instantly. Duckboards with every other bar knocked out were being used as ladders. I found myself in front of our barbed wire with Albert Chitty. Every few minutes a Jerry shrapnel shell exploded with a roar and a burst of black smoke just to our right, and we could hear the bullets and splinters plopping into the mud around us and machine-guns and rifle fire were enfilading from the left flank. We decided not to wait for the rest of the platoon but to push on. The safest place seemed to be the German trench! We slithered and scrambled across the long, long two hundred yards between the trenches, found a gap in the German wire and jumped into the trench. Propped up in a corner on the firestep was a huge Black Watch private. He was unconscious and blowing bubbles of blood from his mouth and nose. It was obvious that he was dying fast. There was nothing that we could do for him except hope that the stretcher-bearers would be following up.
We moved forward until we were in the German third line and we were still alone. Albert Chitty said, ‘Well, we’ll have to wait till the rest of the company come up, they’ve got to pass by this place, so we’ll sit here.’ We sat down and while we were waiting there was a terrific bang in front of me on the other side of the trench. A German shell hit the parados and shot the lot in on me. The trench had a wooden revetting frame to hold it in position, and the top of this frame caught me across my face and it was holding me down, pinning me against the back of the trench – broke my jaw top and bottom. The shrapnel went into my tongue and I had a bit of shrapnel in my head. Albert Chitty was just a little farther up and he came rushing down. He got hold of one of the other lads there and they got their rifles in at the top between the revetting frame and the wall of the trench, and they heaved, and I fell into the gap underneath and they pulled me out.
By this time it was a wholesale retreat of our troops. The Indian troops were coming back over the top of us and through the trench. ‘Run, Johnnie, run,’ they were shouting ‘Allemagne coming.’ Albert said, ‘Come on, boys, we’ve got to get out of here,’ and they dragged me, carried me, pulled me along, and they got me back into our line. It was a nightmare experience. It took two hours. I was suffering from shock and concussion, in addition to my wounds, and I can only remember flashes of that awful journey. I just