The Benson signal., 1918-05-11
hours. 1t was warm and bright.


in several hundred yards away. The
cannon fire ceased, the machine guns
settled down to an occasional fitful
burst and it was midday of a beautiful
spring day.
A couple of partridge flew over me.
What did they know or care about all
this noise and racket and men getting
up in line and killing each other?
Along about three O'clock things be-
gan to liven up again. In the mean
time headquarters had been establish
ed in sunken road with banks about
fifteen feet high on either side (later
this cut was half filled with dead).
MY aid post was in dugout near by
and gradually things got hotter and
hotter.
Our men had dug themselves in
and were popping away with their
rifles. The field batteries behind us
were putting up a barrage, airplanes
were circling overhead, both ours and
the Germans. The Germans put up a
counter-barrage. the machine guns
were going like mad. I was standing
with the colonel on little rise of
ground above the surken road when
the Germans broke through about a
mile to the north of us. They could
be plainly seen pouring over the ridge
in close formation.
Tanks Get Into Action.
Then the tanks came up, and you
should have seen them run! Just like
rabbits! The tanks retired; the
BOches reformed and came at it
again. They tell me that at certain
places our men withstood fifteen sue
cessive attacks and that the Germans
went down in thousands. One Welsh
man told me that his gun accounted
for Is in three minutes during one
wave.
Machine-gun bullets were nipping
around me, the shell fire was getting
hotter, and even though it was a won
derful sight to watch I decided "dis-
cretion was the better part of valor,"
or something like that, and got down
in my dugout.
l was sitting there smoking a Gig
arctic when my orderly came down
|
to 20 back and work with the ambu-
lance. Fifteen hours later the man
that relieved me was captured. But
I am getting ahead of my story.
went back to the advanced dress
ing station through the hottest she'll
fire I ever experienced. More than
once I went down on my face when
shell burst and the pieces went whiz-
zing over my head. I spent the night
in mined village where the advanced
dressing station was located, and all
night they shelled it to blazes. It was
remarkable how few casualties we
! had.
| About eleven o'clock the morning of
the third day shell blew in the side
of our post, but luckily no one was
hurt. We stuck to it until about four
in the afternoon, when we saw our
men retiring over a ridge in front of
u.s. keeping up continuous machine
gun and rifle fire, and we beat 1t back
to another village and opened anoth-
er post.
The Begrimed Lord.
About ten o'clock on the morning Of
the fourth day Lord Thyme, my COL
onel when l was with the battalion,
stumbled into the shack where l was
sitting. He looked like a ghost. He
had lost his hat, his face was covered
with a four days beard, the sweat
had traced tracks in the dust from his
forehead to his chin. His sleeve was
torn and bloody and he had cash in
his arm where he had been struck by
a piece Of flying shell case.
"My God, doc, are you here?" he
said. "You got out just in time. The
battalion is all gone The sunken road
is filled with dead-mostly Huns,
damn 'em. The line broke on the
right: we were surrounded, and at
the last we were fighting back and
back. Only thirty of us got away"
SO we knew the Boche had broken
through to our right and our left, and
it was a question of how long 1t would
be before we, too, were surrounded,
but we wanted to stick it out as long
as we could.
But not more than an hour later
medical officer rushed in from one Of
the battalions and between gasps for
breath told us the Germans were on
the edge of the village, had shot him
through the sleeve with machine
gun bullet Ouckily that was alD, and
for us to beat it.
The ninth day, sitting around the
fire in our mess after the best dinner
we had had in days, the commanding
officer handed me some papers and
said. Here is something, that will in
terest you, Petit. want to say we
shall be sorry to lose you"
! And this is what it was: Lieut.
Roswell T. Petit. M. r. c., is relieved
from duty with the British army and
will proceed to the A. e. F.. where he
will report for duty
leave for Paris in the morning.
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