“Never say die till you’re dead” is the only motto for us in the firing
line, for every hour of the blessed day you’re expecting to have your
head blown off by a German shell, and you wonder how on earth you
managed to escape every time it hits something else instead of you.
Their shells make awful havoc when they do burst, but it is not so
often as you would think. There seems to be something wrong with the
stuffing of them: _Engineer Hughes, Royal Artillery_.
Guarded!
When you do drop asleep you awaken suddenly and think you are being
fired at. Twice now while I have been in battle, the man on my right
and on my left has been killed. The last one next to me to be killed
was poor ----. He was asking me where the enemy was when he got shot in
the arm. Then he got hit in the stomach, and afterwards, poor chap, in
the chest. The man on my right got hit, and then it came my turn. It is
strange that the same thing should occur twice running. God is guarding
me all right: _Sergt. Greeley, South Lancashire Regiment_.