reception, for we had quite a few machine guns out in front and
everybody was in good spirits and keeping a good look out.

We found out by this time we had lost quite a few of our best
officers; out of our company we had lost one of the finest men that
ever went over. He was a man that no matter how hard the bombardment,
he was always normal and would never get excited--that was John
Stairs. The O.C. of "B" Company, Colonel Flowers was also missing. He
was not with us very long, but everybody thought a lot of him. It was
splendid for a man of his age to come out and volunteer as a platoon
commander as he did, and he deserves all the credit that can be given
to him. We had a few others killed and missing, but taking everything
into consideration and the objective that we had taken, we had come
out very lucky.

Our boys were pretty well dug in by 12 that night. It was hard
digging, about a foot of earth, then flint and underneath the flint
was chalk.

Chapter Eight

The reaction had started to set in by this time. I cannot describe it
to you properly, but there are a lot of people under the impression
that a soldier gets a glass of rum before he "goes over." The reason I
write about this is because people have often said the same thing
about me. I'll tell you, the British soldier does not need rum to buck
his courage up. I believe that it was given to the men before they
went over in the beginning, and that after the effect wore off it left
the man drowsy. Once you start "over," you do not give a curse for
anything. All you think about is that there is an objective, and that
there is nothing in this world to stop you and you keep that spirit up
until you have everything securely in your hands, and then perhaps a
couple of hours after a certain amount of reaction sets in. Then is
the time for the rum. In France it is used, "never abused." The
reaction generally works off after a few hours and then you are fit
for anything.

During the night Fritz made several counter attacks on the 22nd. We
were not quite sure how they were making out, but a runner came up and
told us that everything was O.K.

I do not remember anything eventful happening that night. We had a
couple killed, and Sergeant Tickle of the Machine Gun Section, whilst
reconnoitering, ran into a German strong point. He bombed them and got
back safely. But when daylight came there was quite a few of our chaps
getting nipped off from the right, so