Frederick Edwards ["Tales of the V.C."], item 2

• October 21, 2018 10:41:56 Sara Fresi

  trenches. There the leading waves formed up, and went forward

  again towards the second German line.

    Suddenly from in front of them came the menacing chatter of a

  machine gun and a pitiless hail of bullets that forced them to

  the earth. For a few moments they paused under that blasting fire. Then

  one of the men rose from his place and ran along the

  line, a strange figure with mud-caked clothes and face

  blackened by the foul smoke of a bursting grenade. As he

  ran he shouted at the top of his voice for bombs. At 

  last, beside a dead man, he found what he sought - a bucket brimful of bombs.

    Edwards snatched up the bucket and ran, nothing else

  mattered to him in the world now but that deadly machine gun in

  front.

    The gun was now forty yards away, now thirty - and he still

  cried. Stumbling over the broken ground he flung bomb after 

  bomb into the heart of the emplacement. And with the

  twelfth bomb came silence. Then he turned and came

  back to his comrades and told them what he had done.

    So the battalion rose and marched on again towards

  the second German line, and when they passed the emplacement they

  saw in it three Germans lying dead beside a 

  scarred machine gun. 

    That evening the British soldiers took the crest of the ridge, and

  behind them, a red smear upon the chalk of the hill-side,

  lay the impregnable fortress of Thiepval.

• October 21, 2018 10:41:49 Sara Fresi

  
  

  
  

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• January 17, 2018 21:00:11 Thomas A. Lingner

  trenches. There the leading waves formed up, and went forward

  again towards the second German line.

    Suddenly from in front of them came the menacing chatter of a

  machine gun and a pitiless hail of bullets that forced them to

  the earth. For a few moments they paused under that blasting fire. Then

  one of the men rose from his place and ran along the

  line, a strange figure with mud-caked clothes and face

  blackened by the foul smoke of a bursting grenade. As he

  ran he shouted at the top of his voice for bombs. At 

  last, beside a dead man, he found what he sought - a bucket brimful of bombs.

    Edwards snatched up the bucket and ran, nothing else

  mattered to him in the world now but that deadly machine gun in

  front.

    The gun was now forty yards away, now thirty - and he still

  cried. Stumbling over the broken ground he flung bomb after 

  bomb into the heart of the emplacement. And with the

  twelfth bomb came silence. Then he turned and came

  back to his comrades and told them what he had done.

    So the battalion rose and marched on again towards

  the second German line, and when they passed the emplacement they

  saw in it three Germans lying dead beside a 

  scarred machine gun. 

    That evening the British soldiers took the crest of the ridge, and

  behind them, a red smear upon the chalk of the hill-side,

  lay the impregnable fortress of Thiepval.

  
  

  • Show revision
  • Compare to current version
  • Compare to previous version

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