“Eh! Mon, ’Twas Grand!”
A Braw Hieland Laddie’s Impressions of What Happened When “We Were Over the Top Like a Lot of Dogs Let Loose”
The powerful British thrust along the Somme will take its place in history as one of the striking instances of sheer courage fighting against frightful odds and winning out. In that “push” there were hundreds of thrilling individual adventures, but it is impossible to give each man his due, so splendid was the concerted action. But a representative of the London Telegraph talked in a hospital with a Scotsman wounded at Pozieres, and this excerpt from the published article throws an illuminating gleam over the whole battle front, and one feels that Scotty was but the mouthpiece burring out the spirit of his fellows as they plunged forward:
“Eh, mon, it was hell, but it was grand. We’ve got a move on at last, and are paying the Huns out. For over a week our guns have been letting rip at them. Talk about the German guns in the early days of the war, they are not in it now. I was in the retreat from Mons, so I reckon I’ve seen some of the fighting.
“I got my packet Friday night,” he added, referring to his wounds. “We were pushed up to our front line trenches early Friday morning. Long before daybreak the guns were at it worse than ever. The noise fair drove some fellows daft, but the worst of all was waiting in the trenches for the order to charge. When that came we were over the top like a lot of dogs let loose. The ground was churned up for miles, and the front of the German trenches simply smashed to bits. We got there under cover of smoke, and fairly rolled in. I shall never forget the sight. The Germans were lying heaped up in all directions, and those who were alive showed no fight, but appeared to have gone ‘clean potty.’
“Further on we got into the supports, which had received a terrific smashing about, and it was there we had the scrap. At the last moment it seemed the Germans had rushed a crowd of chaps in, and they had hidden themselves in shell holes and were taking pot-shots at us. We rushed them with the bayonet and bombs, and some of them put up a good fight. I had one fellow in front of me, and felt myself a ‘goner,’ for I tumbled over some wire, when one of our chaps got his bayonet into him. The next second a German ‘outed’ my chum. ‘Never fear, Jock,’ he said, ‘you did the same trick for me once.’ That chap’s left a wife and six bairns away up north,” added the Scot.
Asked how he received his wounds, the Scot became somewhat bashful. “Oh, one of the Huns got in at me,” he replied. Another wounded hero, however, took up the narrative. “He fair tumbled into a hole where there was half a dozen of ’em hiding,” said the second man. “Jock comes of a fighting race, and he gave the Huns a bit for hiding.”