THE YPRES TIMES
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hour of our efforts the Hun must have got sick of it and began retaliation. Then
we caught it, as he knew exactly where we were lying. He used more of those
devilish 5.9's than shrapnel, which would have served him better as we were so
scattered. The ghostly little skeleton of Hannebeek Wood stood out in the welter
of flashes again and again and it was all so unreal one forgot the time completely.
5.45 came, 5.46, 5.47, and at 5.48, with my heart beating almost audibly, it
seemed, I got up from my cramped attitude and started fetching up the men. A
dark misty dawn was approaching but we had a half hour start of it, and with
other figures in the mist all around us we moved off at 5.50, yet in five minutes
we were all over the place as regards formation, in spite of all the text-books
Thirty yards was all the visibility I could command, and soon we got to the
Hannebeek which we forded over knee-deep. By then the Institute pill-box
was emptying belt after belt into us and some of my men were down. We had
miles to do and visibility remained bad all the way. We leap-frogged the
ZONNEBEKE CHURCH, 1917.
8th King's Own about half-way, by which time we had quite got the enemy's
measure, and I had secured three prisoners. We were keeping close to our
barrage in spite of the frightful morass we were in, and the star-shells indicating
barrage liftwere a godsend. It was just impossible to hear one's own
shouting, and sheer exhilaration kept us going, marvellous to relate, in exactly
the right direction.
We duly jumped the K.O. and then became more wary. I was fired at from
about 15 yards' range and missed. Careful and quick examination revealed a
bunch of about six of the hated round tin hats in a shell-hole. I fired back and
challenged them to surrender. Two came out hands up and pointed to several
others wounded and bleeding in the hole. Eventually they jog-trotted back