A young officer, Pinky Brown, as we called him, he’d had a wash, put a towel, a waterproof sheet up and had a wash. So I was awkward as could be at anytime so, I said, ‘Well I’m going to be next’, I said, and that’s that and if it hadn’t have been me, it would have been someone else. Previous to that one of the staff had said, ‘If he starts firing here lads you needn’t be worried’, he said, ‘He’s too near his own trench to have a go’.

He had a go. He hit it alright. I remember going down, the explosion, the force of the explosion. I remember the explosion and I remember falling. It was almost a direct hit.