Free Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine Page A

There are wounded here!' and eventually I got back to our trench.
    Private Herbert Hall
    12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment
    I went over carrying a full kit, blanket in the pack, a rifle, helmet, a full-size navvy's pick across my shoulders, the pack on my back, two hundred rounds of ammunition and twenty Mills bombs. I could have been a mule, you know, not a human being! We had to jump out of the trenches with that, and not
    only did I carry my own twenty bombs, but I collected two bags of twenty each from one fellow that was wounded, and another that had come down with shell shock. So I went in with sixty bombs. I was a moving arsenal! A bit of shrapnel would have shot me into the clouds!
    I didn't get across; I got about forty yards over the top. There was nobody with me. All the others had dropped down or were wounded, so I dropped into a shell-hole. About mid-afternoon, I saw one or two people crawling in, so I went with them. I couldn't fight the German army alone, could I? They didn't intend me to, did they? Some made it to the German wire, and they made all sorts of cries of pain and suffering.
    Private Donald Cameron
    12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment
    The first wave went over at 0720. They lay down about a hundred yards in front of our own barbed wire. Then the second wave went over, and lay down about thirty yards behind them. During this time, there was high explosives, shrapnel, everything you can imagine, coming over. Terrific hurtling death. It was soul destroying, but I wasn't frightened: I was impatient, I wanted to get moving.
    The night before, they'd laid tapes, showing us the way to the cuts in the German wire. But when we went over, these tapes were missing, so we headed off in what we thought was the right direction. We'd been told that we had to walk at arm's length from each other, and that's how we started. But not for long. When we saw people dropping like ninepins on either side, we bent double, and in the end we started crawling. After a while, three of us, and Sergeant Gallimore , got down into a shell-hole. It must have been about eight o'clock. The firing went on, and we kept peeping up, looking over the top to check, and the bloody Germans were sniping our wounded. They were even firing at the dead. They couldn't see us in our shell-hole. I must have prayed a dozen times. I used to go to church when I was a lad, but I prayed more in that shell-hole than I ever prayed in church.
    Corporal A. Wood
    16th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment
    The Pals were the finest soldiers that you've ever seen. And we were all friends. About ten minutes before we climbed out of the trench, we were
    issued with a very strong dixie of rum, out of a stone bottle. We were told that the wire had been cut in front of our front line, that there'd be no difficulty at all for us to get through and that there wouldn't be a German within miles. We went up the ladder, on top of the parapet, and immediately anyone appeared, the blast of the machine guns knocked them back into the trench. There were Germans sat on the parapet of their trench with machine guns, mowing us down. In fact, I don't think half a dozen of our people got beyond our front line, never mind to the German front line.
    Private Frank Raine
    18th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
    Oh, my God! The ground in front – it was just like heavy rain; that was machine-gun bullets. Up above, there were these great big 5.9-inch shrapnel shells going off. Broomhead and I went over the top together. We walked along a bit. A terrific bang and a great black cloud of smoke above us. I felt a knock on my hip which I didn't take much notice of. I turned round, and Broomhead had gone. I walked on and I could not see a soul of any description – either in front of or behind me. I presume they got themselves tucked into shell-holes. I thought, 'Well, I'm not going on there by myself,' and I turned round and came back.
    Private Reginald Glenn
    12th Battalion,