In The Trenches 1914-1918. Glenn Ph.D. Iriam

old A Company was sticking out into the swamp like the bow of a ship in a hurricane with Durand’s platoon still doing business on our left flank. Lipsett figured that we were in danger of being cut off and grabbed cooks, batmen, clerks, transport men, and anyone else on two legs, sending them in to form a connecting link from our left flank back to where there were some more of our troops.

      The Kilties on our left had fallen back too and were out on the point of a salient. This rabble pushed forward and got to grips in one place with the Germans with their bayonets. A lad by the name of Eddie Platt got up against a big German about twice his size and had to stick him or be stuck. Now it is a very revolting thing to some people to have to use the cold steel and Platt had to summon all his nerve to do it. He stuck fritz alright fainting with revulsion immediately after. Now there had been some troops sent up to try and relieve or to support us.. They were the 8th Durham’s and green troops of the Territorial Army who had come to someplace in France to finish their training before being sent into the line. They were grabbed and rushed in to stem the tide of the German drive. A remnant of them survived the advance that they made down that two miles of slope over exposed ground to our position. They must have been exposed to terrific fire during that advance and all credit is due them as green troops for ever getting there at all. I think some of our own men also made that advance. Part of company, or No. 3 company who had been in reserve were sent forward to join us on the spear point of the defense. Most of the officers and N. Co’s of the Durhams were killed before they got to us with the remnants of the rank and file being a bit bewildered and shaken by this sudden drop right into Hell itself without any warning or preliminaries. Finding friends that still had a stiff spine and could still curse while facing the right way they were alright and took hold with a good heart. Right here I noticed a sort of queer comedy right in the midst of all the horrors.

      There was at least one officer of the Durhams that got to the front line. He was a treat to see. He must have been spawn of the Creme De La Crème for he had the airs, the monocle, spotless cream-colored pipe clay faced breeches and all the rest of it. His servant carried an air cushion which he blew up and placed on the parodos to keep the cream colored breeches spotless. Here was the meeting of the extremes if ever it was. He adjusted the monocle and chatted in the best afternoon tea manner for 15 or 20 minutes without ever saying anything that had any bearing on the doings around us. The wildest imagination could not picture any object more utterly out of place on earth or yet in Heaven. He lasted about 20 minutes when a shell swept him away into the void along with large chunks of our ragged parapet. If he wakes in some drawing room in his special Heaven, he will no doubt still have the monocle uncracked and will enquire as to what those rude fellows were doing.

      Conan Doyle said St. Julien was the greatest unsupported infantry defense in military history and he had an uncanny way of getting at the truth of things. The proper relation of all these events one to the other and their proper sequence is a bit blurred to me now. I cannot place them in their exact time and place, for a person in the thick of a mess like that is not always able to see it as a whole or remember dates and statistics.

      The Northumberland Fusiliers worked their way into our line. I think it must have been the night after the gas attack and now our boys who still represented what was left of the L. B. Ds. were outnumbered by the newcomers.