ar-guard actions to cover a necessary
withdrawal.[15]

It was, naturally, a matter of great interest to me to determine to what
particular officers these remarks referred, as no names were given and
no battalions mentioned by name. Now, of course, we all know. The
officer who reached Wurst Farm was John Redner Bodington, and the
gallant young officer who fought like a hound at bay, while wounded over
and over again, and hoped that "the General was not disappointed," was
none other than the hero whose name is upon the title-page of this
book--Bertram Best-Dunkley. And, as the days rolled by, one familiar
name after another was recorded in the casualty lists. It was the
bloodiest battle in History; the casualty list which contained my name
was the longest I have ever seen in the _Times_.

I wrote to Sergeant Baldwin for information as to the fate of my
platoon, and, some time afterwards, received the following reply:

"Ward 24,
"Ontario Military Hospital,
"Orpington, Kent.
"August 15th, 1917.
"Dear Sir,

"I have much pleasure in replying to your letter dated August 5th, 1917.
I am very pleased indeed to know that you are safe in 'Blighty.' Well,
sir, you ask me where I got to when we went over the top. I think you
will remember halting and lying down in no man's land. Well, as I lay
there the time seemed to be long; then I got up and went to the front of
the platoon to see what had gone wrong. When I got there I found you had
gone on and the remainder of the men had not the sense to follow you. So
I led on with the remainder, taking my direction from the compass. I
reached the hill and passed Schuler Farm on the right. We started to
climb the hill and then a funny thing happened: those already at the top
came running back again shouting 'Get back and dig in; they are
outflanking us.' I took the warning and retired to a suitable position
and got the men digging themselves in. We could see the Boches coming
over the ridge like a swarm of bees. When they got nearer we opened
machine gun and rifle fire. All the time this was going on the artillery
had ceased firing, and I began to feel a bit downhearted. Then things
quietened down a bit; so I told the lads to make a drink of tea for
themselves, which they did gladly enough. All the time we could see
Fritz preparing for a counter-attack a