So it was as time wore on, I “got mine” in the right shoulder and right lung.  A German explosive bullet caught me while I was in a lying position.  It was at Ypres; we all get it at Ypres.

The thing happened under peculiar circumstances.  It was the second time in my army career that I volunteered for anything.  The first time was the night I went on listening post; the second time I got plugged, and plugged for good.

We had repulsed the enemy several times.  We were running short of ammunition and our position was enfiladed.  It was absolutely necessary, if all of us were not to lose our lives, that some one should bring up ammunition.

The ammunition dump lay about a mile back of our line.  An officer called for volunteers to creep back for a supply.  It was broad daylight, but twenty-eight other lads and myself stepped forward willing to attempt the task.

The men who remained behind had a command to keep up a rapid fire over the enemy trenches which would lend us some cover.  No matter how perfect this covering may be, it is never completely effective in silencing the enemy fire.  Quite a number of bullets scattered about us as we clambered along the short communication trench, and up into the open.  This was my first experience in running away from bullets, and I proved in the first five seconds of that journey that a man, no matter what his propensities for winning medals may be, can run much faster from bullets than he can toward them.

Among us were boys of several other companies, and on the way out three of the twenty-nine got hit.  I did not know whom.  We kept on, breathless and gasping, running as we were under the weight of full equipment and dodging bullets as we went.  Shells were falling round us too, now.  We were not happy.

At last we got to our destination and picked up the boxes.  A box of ammunition weighs a hundred or more pounds, so we decided that three of us should carry two boxes.  The boxes are fitted with handles on each end.

We started off running at top speed, then dropping flat on our stomachs to fetch our breath and rest our aching arms.  The enemy was rapidly getting thicker.  We rose and rushed forward another stretch.  At three hundred yards from the trench, the greater number of our crowd had fallen.  We dropped.  Then our hearts stood still, for from our trench there came a silence we could feel.

We knew what it meant.  There was no need for the enemy to increase the rapidity of his fire over us and over the boys in the trench to let us know what was up.  Our ammunition had already given out, and we had to face the last few hundred yards without protection, meager though it had been throughout.  We knew there was not a man in that trench who had a bullet left.  We knew that as far as we were concerned, we were done.  We metaphorically shook hands with ourselves and wished friend self a long good-by.  We looked at the sun and said “Tra-la-la” to it, and we wondered in a flash of thought what the old world would be like without us.  We wondered where we would “light up.”