Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine Page A

only a hundred answered. The rest were either wounded or killed. At the time, our parents used to send out food parcels, wrapped in cloth. So there were parcels for eight hundred men waiting for us, to be shared amongst a hundred.
    Private Frank Lindlay
    14th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment
    As we were making for the gaps between the shell-holes, we were covered by their fire. They opened up with whizz-bangs, and one hit us. I was wounded by a piece of shell through my right thigh. I managed to drag myself down to a dressing station behind the lines. On the way down, I could see our reserve trenches were full of dead and wounded. The Germans had lifted their barrage as we'd gone over, and all our reserve troops were decimated at the back. Everything was quiet as I went past. When I got to the dressing station, they gave me a shot for tetanus, wrapped me up and bunged me in an ambulance that went to Étaples , where they operated. They yanked the piece of shell – and my trousers – out of my leg, and I was dispatched back to Blighty.
    Private Arthur Pearson
    15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment
    The sergeant decided that as the attack was finished, we'd go back and try and get into our own line. We climbed out of a shell-hole and made a dash, and my rifle got caught on the wire. It stopped there. I didn't have time to get it free, and we got back in the line. I noticed one of our chaps, Jim, laying in the trench with a severed leg, and a block of timber across it which was acting as a tourniquet, stopping the bleeding. I ran down the trench, looking for stretcher-bearers , and I bumped into an officer with half-a-dozen men. He stopped me, and wanted to know where I was going. I said, 'I'm going for help! There's Jim, there, with his leg off!' 'Never mind him!' said the officer. 'Fall in with my men!' So I picked a rifle up, wiped it and fell in. But when I got my first chance, I lost him. Well, Jim was found and carried out, and sent to Blighty, and he made it through!
    Private Ralph Miller
    1/8th Battalion, Warwickshire Regiment
    There were so many falling. I was hit by a shell blast. I didn't know a thing from that moment on until I was back in Birmingham . I don't know who picked me up and saved me. I was hit by shrapnel in my hand, my arm and I lost two fingers on my right hand. When I came round at the University Hospital in Birmingham, I was told that my parents had been to see me. I was in a nice comfortable bed – but it was the shock of my life: 'Where am I? What am I doing here?' I asked the military orderly. 'You're in Brum,' he said, and I shook his hand.
    Private Stanley Bewshire
    11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment
    I came to Serre, and there was Colonel Rickman and Lieutenant McAlpine . They said, 'Have you just come over, my lad?' I said, 'Yes.' The colonel said, 'Was that you firing over there? Are they Germans?' I said, 'Yes sir, they were just coming down that communication trench, and I felt they were going to counterattack.' He said, 'You did very well. We've been watching you. Take his name and number, McAlpine!' The colonel then told me to move down the line. Later on, when I was in a Canadian hospital, a sergeant from the battalion came to see me. He said, 'It's come up on battalion orders – you've got the Military Medal .'
    Private Reginald Glenn
    12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment
    I fell back, but the British line was smashed up by artillery fire, and we fell back to the support line. Only twenty of us got back to the support line. And then, at noon, we received a message from divisional headquarters, telling us that we had to do it again. Twenty of us had to make another attack on the German lines. We were shocked, like sheep who didn't know what was going on. That order was countermanded – we couldn't have gone, there weren't enough of us. And we had no idea what was happening anywhere else. There was no communication.
    That night we went out, and if we heard anybody