Well, the next thing I knew I was smothered in dirt and rubble, all rubble. I brushed off out me neck and off me tin hat, and – well I stretched me arms first. I thought, ‘They’re both on.’ And then I stretched me legs out and I thought, ‘They’re both on’. So I’d got me legs and arms anyway. And brushed the dirt off me head, I put me hand under me face, that were full of blood. I thought, ‘ Ooh blimey’. That made me nose bleed I expect, concussion: and me foot, that hurt. That’s all that hurt really and me face was sore. And this kiddie next to me, I knocked him on the arm , I said, ‘Are you alright kid?’ He never spoke, never answered. I said, ‘Are you alright?’ Never answered. I thought, ‘Ooh blimey’. So I knocked the dirt off his head, and he’d got a piece of shell clean through the centre, the top of his helmet and was sticking out under his chin. Now then, so’s he’d had it.

There was three officers standing there. Now these three officers hadn’t been touched! So one of them said, ‘I’m going out’, he said, ‘I’ll give meself up and get the stretcher bearers, get some German stretcher bearers.’ Another officer, he said, ‘Alright’, he said, ‘I’ll come with you as well’, see. And the third officer, he said the same. I thought, ‘Blimey O’Reilly’. I was the only one on me feet. So, ‘course, naturally I said, ‘Well’, I said, ‘If you all three going, I’m coming as well’.

So this third officer, he turned round to me, in hell of a temper: He said, ‘You stay here’ he says, ‘and bind these wounded up’. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about it’, I says, ‘I don’t know anything about wounded’. He said, ‘You bind them up’. I said, ‘No’, I said. I said, ‘If you’re all going to fetch German stretcher bearers’, I said, ‘they know what to do. I don’t know what to do’. Well he drew his revolver out, he rubbed the muzzle along me forehead. He says, ‘You attempt to follow me’ he says ‘and I’ll blow your brains out’. So I never done no more, I stood there.

Now that first one as had said he’d give himself up, he went first, next one got up followed him, another second one got up followed him. I waited a little while, perhaps half a minute, I wouldn’t be sure. Then I heard it go ‘a garr, tat, tat, tat, grr’. I thought, ‘Ooh hell.’ So I waited a minute, I crawled up where it had all been knocked in and had a quick peek over the top. They all three lay dead.

So I crawled back in the trench and this other officer that had been flattened out, he turned to me, he says, ‘They’re dead ain’t they?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘ they’re all dead.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t know anything about ambulance work, but I’ll bandage you up as well as I can’. The third one the other end, ooh, I’d never see anything like it. The blast had busted his thighs, you know your thigh bone? It had busted them through so as both his legs were the wrong way round. I says to him, ‘Can I do anything for you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘ you can’t,’ he said. ‘Just make me comfortable’.

As the day wore on, you know, this was morning. Well, in the afternoon I could see he were getting groggy; he called to the officer who was only just a few yards away, he said, ‘Give me your revolver’. This officer he knew what he wanted it for. This officer called me he says, ‘Here you are, here’s this revolver’. He said, ‘Throw it away’. So I threw it over the top of the trench, ‘cause he wanted to do himself in, I expect. So I kept lighting fags for him, and later in the afternoon he called again. I went to him and he got his old fag tin out, put a fag in his mouth, and then he said, ‘’Ere you are’, with his fag tin. He says, ‘’Ere kid, you have these fags,’ he said, ‘I shan’t want ‘em. He said, ‘If you ever get out of this, he said, ‘tell me mum won’t you?' I says, ‘Yes I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her’. Well I couldn’t, I didn’t know who he was. I couldn’t tell. I says, ‘Yes I’ll tell her’. Well within a minute or so of that, I lit his fag, it dropped out of his mouth and he said, ‘Oh God, help me’. And that was the end of that.