. We were notified that the hour would be at 4.45 p.m.
All right. Just before the attack Fritz sent a few shells over on us
and we shelled the best way that we could. It is getting quite close
to the appointed time. I look at my watch. My men are all ready. I
have nothing to worry about. I wonder whether I have been out here too
long and that I am going to get mine. But I don't worry for we get to
be fatalists and say if it is going to be well it has to be, so what's
the odds. I look at my watch, it wants a minute to go. By the time I
put my watch back there is one terrific noise. All around the horizon
in the rear there is one mass of flame. You can hear the shells
whizzing over your head. We start over--walking, not running. It is a
creeping barrage. It will play on his wire and front line trenches for
a while and then creep forward. We are following up close behind it.
It is a wonderful sight and nobody will ever be able to do justice to
it. Shells bursting in front of us. Fritz sending up his S.O.S.
signals; our men with their rifles at the "High Port," not giving a
damn for anybody living, with one fixed idea that is to get into
Fritz' trench and take all of our objectives and take them prisoner,
but if they show any fight to do them in. We get to his wire it is not
cut as well as it should have been, but we belong to the "25th." We
have to get through regardless of what happens to ourselves. We get
through the wire but most of the boys are a little too much to the
right. There is a machine gun playing on us but not doing any damage.

One of Fritz's bombs burst right close by us and some of it gets me
behind the ear. But they are only flesh wounds and we have got to get
to the objective, which is a sunken road. He is using a trench mortar
on us. But with our usual luck he is firing wild and, therefore doing
no damage. I jump into the sunken road. I am too far ahead of my men.
The Fritz's who are firing the Trench Mortar see me and think that we
are all there. So they start to beat it. I fire at them with my
revolver. I hear some squealing behind me and look around. Three
Germans! What can I do. I cannot take them prisoners nor can I take
any chances. So I have no other alternative but to shoot them. It may
seem cold blooded to a lot but the only thing I am sorry for is that I
did not kill a few more. About the same time my men came along and we
started bombing the dugouts. It was great sport. You throw a bomb down