Memoirs of an Anzac by John Charles Barrie

Author:John Charles Barrie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, BIO008000, HIS027090
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2015-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Next morning, an item of pleasant news came to the battalion. Owing to the heavy casualties sustained by the front-line battalions (5th and 6th), they were not strong enough to carry out the attack. The 7th and 8th would therefore relieve that night, and the attack would be carried out by the 8th Battalion. We were always lucky. However, ‘war’s war’, and we took it philosophically. What you lose on the roundabouts, you pick up on the swings. We spent a quiet day resting, if one could call it quiet with the thunder of the guns in our ears nearly all day. Still, one gets used to that. I felt very worried about the job ahead of us that night, and though I could not help feeling glad that my company was not to take part in the actual attack, but would remain in support, having done its task the day before, I could not help feeling concerned about those who were going in. I felt pretty certain that the enemy would have a surprise prepared for us. However, I kept my mouth shut on the subject. I knew nothing. It was only suspicions, and it was no use worrying the officers concerned about a thing I was not sure of. They had enough on their minds already.

We moved in early in the evening. The attack was to take place at midnight. The result was as I anticipated. Let us pass it over as quickly as possible. It was too terrible to dwell on, or to describe in detail. The Germans had prepared their trap under cover of darkness, quietly and unobserved, and our poor fellows ran into it with terrible results. They had dug a half-moon trench around our ‘T’, and caught them in front and flanks with machine guns, in this manner shown here:

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