Ten Years Ago Today, item 19

• December 10, 2016 21:57:33 Sue Bryant

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                  Whether those boys escaped that shell I don’t know

  and never found out. All I could do now was

  get a lamp station fixed up as near to the spot

  where I should have been as possible and wait for

  further developments. The most extraordinary fact

  of the whole business was the absence of any of our

  own troops. Occasionally a stretcher bearer would

  pass us with a burden, but there was no one

  from whom I could get much help or

  information. And I mention again that lack

  of information in an attack is one of the hardest

  factors of the day. Here I had been away from

  the guns for three hours or more. I had done

  nothing. Didn’t know where the line was if the

  objective had been reached, or if the Germans were

  attacking or retreating. It was the uncertainty

  of the show which frayed our nerves.

                  I got my camp station going and

  reported as much as I could to Brigade

  and that wasn’t much. I explained how the

  German trench was still held by a few men and

  asked for a few rounds of howitzer to be dropped

  over. I never got those shells and was glad

  afterwards. I didn’t. Only a hundred yards

  separated us and we didn’t know if any of our

  wounded were anywhere near and it isn’t’ easy

  to drop a shell plumb into a trench without

  a good deal of preliminary.

  
  

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