The Ypres Times.
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broken through that we were slowly being driven back, and that we could not
guarantee line communication. The gunner Major broke in with Tell your C.O. or
Adjutant we will maintain 'runner contact.'" We made our way back to H.Q. after
dropping to the ground every few minutes as shell after shell exploded near us. The
sight of the mutilated, pouring out of the woods into the emergency dressing-station
filled me with anger. Captain Dunkerly, R.A.M.C., was Medical Officer, and was
carrying on splendidly. He was afterwards killed while serving with a Field Ambulance.
Dunkerly was no No. 9 medico. Always gave a fellow a fair showing at sick-parade. The
dressing station was about three hundred feet south of the H.Q. dugouts, across a clearing.
DISCHARGE PROM A TRENCH FLAME PROJECTOR.
Imperial War Museum. Crown Copyright.
We managed to reach the Battalion, and found things in a wild state. Very few officers
remained alive. Nearly eight men of C Company had been burned with liquid fire.
"B" and "D" Companies in the supports caught more punishment than did "A" and "C"
Companies in the front line. Cpls. Wooding and Osbaldeston were now in the new front
line attempting to establish contact with H. Q. I was engaged in trying to run lines from
Coy. H. Q. to the Companies in the supports. Finally seeing how hopeless was any attempt
to establish line communication I joined the Rifles in the front line. There was a big tree
near me the trench was shallow, it came to one's knees only the ground in front was
slightly uphill toward the German line. Behind me on the ivy-covered ground was Bieut.
Scrimageour, dead. I felt curiously elated in a tragic sort of way, and rather enjoyed things.
It occurred to me that here was ample opportunity deliberately to kill something human,
and witness the killing. Changing from a cramped kneeling position, I stood upright, and
leaning with my left shoulder against the big tree, commenced to pepper away with my
rifle. There was one big German with bombs. He was advancing and throwing the bombs
right and left. Taking careful aim I placed a bull's eye right in his breadbasketplunk
and followed it up with four more. He reeled and fell. The noise overhead from the
aeroplanes, the bursting shrapnel, the H.E. bombs and mortars was so deafening that
one could not hear one's own voice. I recalled, vaguely, that something was happening,
