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I was in command, as all the officers and non-coms so far as I
could make out had snuffed. I signalled to halt and take cover, my
idea being to wait for the other waves to catch up. The men needed
no second invitation to lie low. They rolled into the shell holes
and burrowed where there was no cover.
I drew a pretty decent hole myself, and a man came pitching in on
top of me, screaming horribly. It was Corporal Hoskins, a close
friend of mine. He had it in the stomach and clicked in a minute or
two.
During the few minutes that I lay in that hole, I suffered the
worst mental anguish I ever knew. Seeing so many of my closest
chums go west so horribly had nearly broken me, shaky as I was when
the attack started. I was dripping with sweat and frightfully
nauseated. A sudden overpowering impulse seized me to get out in
the open and have it over with. I was ready to die.
Sooner than I ought, for the second wave had not yet shown up, I
shrilled the whistle and lifted them out. It was a hopeless charge,
but I was done. I would have gone at them alone. Anything to close
the act. To blazes with everything!
As I scrambled out of the shell hole, there was a blinding,
ear-splitting explosion slightly to my left, and I went down. I did
not lose consciousness entirely. A red-hot iron was through my
right arm, and some one had hit me on the left shoulder with a
sledge hammer. I felt crushed,--shattered.
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