Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine Page B

crying or moaning, we helped them back into our lines. The stretcher-bearers were working, but they couldn't cope on their own. There was no firing from the Germans, and we did a lot of that, all night.
    Private James Snaylham
    11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment
    As I crawled into the communication trench, a sniper fired and it whizzed past my face. It was a miracle. Anyway I crawled on and on until I come to a field dressing station, where I was told, 'I don't know what to do with you! Look at all this lot wounded!' He said, 'I will take you on to the main road, and probably an ambulance will come along and pick you up.' Well, eventually an ambulance did come along and it was full, but they took me in and it took me to a big chateau. There was a tremendous drama there – it was full of wounded. So they carried me in and they operated on me – one man holding my arms and another holding my legs, while they pulled the shrapnel out.
    Corporal A. Wood
    16th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment
    I got a field dressing on my wound, and then I made my way – as best as I could – back to the railhead, which was a miniature railway. I lay there for two or three days without anyone coming near me, because the train that was supposed to take us to the hospital had broken down. Eventually, it did come and we got down to the Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne . We all got nicely tucked up in bed, and then the Zeppelins came over and bombed the hospital out of existence. After that we were all shipped back to Blighty. Half the soldiers wouldn't have got back home if it hadn't been for the Zeppelins; they'd have been patched up, and sent back up the line.
    Sergeant A. S. Durrant
    18th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
    It took me over a week to reach England, and when we arrived at Bristol station we were laid out on the platform and the good Bristol folk came and gave us cigarettes, tobacco and sweets. I was conveyed to Southmead Hospital in Bristol and dumped on to a nice clean bed in exactly the same state as I'd been in France, all covered with mud and crammed full of lice. A nurse came to take off my clothes, and I was heartily sorry for her, having to drag those clothes off me and make me reasonably clean. For two or three days after, the odd louse kept finding its way into the bedclothes.
    BEAUMONT HAMEL TO THIEPVAL
    Further south, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment was the only Dominion regiment advancing on the first morning of the battle. Out of 810 Newfoundlanders who attacked the village of Beaumont Hamel, only sixtyeight men – and no officers – escaped serious injury. A hundred bombers of the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers advanced to a sunken road in noman's- land, but were forced to retreat. Men of the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked and captured Schwaben Redoubt , and made further advances into German territory, but fell back under ' friendly' British artillery fire .
    Corporal George Ashurst
    1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers
    Before the attack, you couldn't move in the trenches, they were so packed with men. They were grumbling and grousing; some were trying to be brave, and joking. There were all sorts. It went quiet, and then it was time to go. When I stepped on top of our trench, there was a corporal lying there, hit by a whizz-bang, and all his shoulder was gone. Blown away. And he looked up at me, and he said, 'Go on! Get the bastards!' I said, 'OK,' and buggered off as fast as I could. There were bullets everywhere; there was gunsmoke; you could hear a bullet hitting someone, and you'd hear him groan and go down. I was running fast, zigzagging. All I was thinking, was, 'I've got to get forward!' Keeping my head down. I was expecting to feel a bullet any second.
    I came to the sunken road, 150 yards from our trench, and I dived into it. You couldn't see the German trenches from it. There were others in there, including the colonel, and he said, 'Every fit man, over the top again! Come with me!' He