A Day on the Somme.
THE YPRES TIMES
207
T the risk of being considered irrelevant, 1 propose to take my readers
away from the Salient with me for a summer day on the Somme. This
day is a day in the life of one John Bfown, and the date July 20th, 1916.
There is, perhaps, little out of the ordinary in the story, but a personal experience
has usually some points of interest to those who have had similar adventures.
John Brown was no soldier. At the outbreak of war in 1914 he was a young
man of twenty-five, big, strong, and healthy, just an ordinary young Englishman
ready to-do what he saw as his duty to his country. The war had been in progress
a month when he put on his fusilier's uniform, and in 1915 he was in the front
line just too late for the Battle of Loos. The Somme was a new experience
for him. By this time he was a hardened veteran, but he had, of course, no
taste of a real attempt to advance.
When his battalion arrived from the north the battle had been raging for
a fortnight, flesh and blood against iron and steel that flew at one red-hot from
all directions, tearing and mutilating all the frail human flesh with which it came in
contact. How humanity prevailed against it was wonderful; but by sheer weight
of numbers, flesh gained against metal, and the British Army was advancing
slowly.
On July 20th the brigade of which Brown was a humble member was deputed
to capture a wood which could be seen in front of the new lines, a lovely sylvan
spot which was to become famous under the name of High Wood. Two battalions
were in front, with Brown's in close support, and another in reserve when the
attack began at 2 a.m. The men advanced through a wide stretch of No Man's
Land just as they had done on Salisbury Plain, but there were a good many
casualties before they reached the wood, including the gallant Colonel, a
Worcestershire man who had won the D.S.O. and a permanent limp with his
county regiment in South Africa. Fortunately he was only wounded, and lived
on to die a natural death last year. As the men lay on the fringe of the wood,
our guns poured into the trees a rain of shells which, effectually drove the Germans
who survived into a far corner, which they continued to hold throughout the
day. The uproar was deafening, and no man could hear the voice of his
neighbour. As the barrage lifted the troops raced into the wood with bayonets
fixed. Brown and his companions reaching the far side without encountering
anything more deadly than various dead Germans, and a few Highlanders who
had fallen in a previous attack the week before.
Day was now breaking, the opening of a glorious day of summer, as Brown
began, along with some of his own battalion and a party of regular Royal
Engineers under a sergeant, to dig a machine-gun emplacement in front of the
wood and in full view of the enemy. Work proceeded rapidly, with shrapnel
bursting overhead and bullets whistling past. Cover seemed a long time in
coming, but all worked with a frenzy natural in men trying to save their lives.
By the time the trench was deep enough to afford real protection the party
was sadly depleted. Brown had escaped with a bump on the shoulder blade by a
piece of spent metal, which was of no account, and a small piece of shrapnel which
had hit him in the corner of the mouth, and which caused him annoyance by
reason of the attention of a big fly which persisted in sitting on the sore spot
but most of his companions had departed, either killed or gone back wounded.
During the morning he had been working beside an R.E., when a shrapnel shell
had burst behind them, scorching the back of his neck. He turned to the man
