“Some Germans shelled us with a cross fire.  They got into the cross trenches.  They fired down our lines from the side.  We had to run back.  I was too tired and sleepy to drag my feet.  I think I must have fallen asleep.

“We had an order to advance again.  The French were behind us on either wing in support.  I was too tired to get up.  Some one kicked me.  I looked up.  They were three of my friends, volunteers like myself.  We had all joined together.  They apologized and ran forward.  They are all wounded now, but we are all still alive, and I never have been hit once in thirty-four fights.

“I got up.  So did a man lying on the field in front of me.  He was shot through the head and fell back on me.  I got up again.  A shell burst beside me and I saw three men, who were running past, just disappear.  I was lying on my face again, and could not lift my head, either through fear or sleep, I don’t know which.

“I found myself running forward again.  I called to men lying and running near and held my revolver at them.  We were all charging with bayonets back at the Germans shooting us from our own trenches under the raised bank.  They did not wait for us.  They looked like frightened gray beetles as they scrambled up away over our bank and down into the river.  It was dusk, but we shot at them over the bank.  The water seemed full of them.  We crouched in a big trench in muddy water behind the bank.  No, we did not sleep, but my head and eyes seemed to go to sleep from time to time.

“There were perhaps 200 left of our 600.  I think there was one officer further along, but it was quite dark.  Some of the men talked very low.  Then I heard voices whispering and talking near us on the river side of our bank.  It was of earth perhaps five feet high and six feet thick.  On the other side the slope fell steeply to the river.

“I sent a hush along the line.  We listened quite silent.  I thought I heard German words, an order passed along on the other side.  I crawled up on to the bank, not showing my head, you know.  It was really about 300 Germans who had stayed there on our side under the bank, fearing to cross the river under our fire.  So we stayed all through the night.  We did not sleep nor did they.

“There was just six feet of piled wet earth between us.  We only whispered and could hear them muttering and the sound of their belts creaking and of water bottles being opened.

“There was a thick gray mist hanging low in the morning.  I crawled on to the bank again, holding my revolver out-stretched.  A gray figure stood up in the mist below close to me.  He looked like a British soldier in khaki.  He said:  ‘It’s all right, we are English,’ and I said, ’But your accent isn’t,’ and I shot him through with my revolver.  Some of our men crept to the bank, but they shot them, and some of theirs climbed over, but we fired at their heads or arms as they showed only a few feet away, and they fell backward [Transcriber:  original ‘bakward’] or on to us or lay hanging on the bank.  Then we all waited.