Sir Harold Howitt

After a time they handed me over to two soldiers armed with revolvers and I was sent outside. There I saw the next assault being prepared, mules carrying machine guns and mortars, and all in full array. Then a gold and silver rain rocket went up all along the front, and this was obviously the signal for the advance. My escort, not knowing what else to do, made me also go forward and, as this was towards our lines, I acquiesced.

As luck would have it, when we were at the bottom, one of our shells dropped unpleasantly close and, looking over my shoulder, I noticed that both my guards had ducked into a shell hole behind. With no plan in mind I instinctively leapt at the first man to get up … all I could do was throw one man against the other and roll them both into the ditch at the side of the road. For a moment I wondered what one does next, and even whether I ought to apologise. However, I recovered my wits and ran for it. … They were soon up and emptying their revolvers at me, but they missed.

I crawled as near as I dared between two posts and was just going to spring when I heard one of the men utter a well-known British oath (I always say it is the most blessed word in our language) and I knew I had got through the German patrols and had bumped up against our own rearguard line

There to my surprise I found Lefroy. The Boche had held him prisoner for precisely eight hours. During that time he had been so interested in watching the way the enemy handled an attack that he had forgotten the miseries of his position. He described with blasphemous admiration the endless wheel by which supplies and reserve troops move up, the silence, the smoothness, the perfect discipline. Then he had realized that he was a captive and unwounded, and had gone mad. Being a heavy-weight boxer of note, he had sent his two guards spinning into a ditch, dodged the ensuing shots, and found shelter in the lee of a blazing ammunition dump where his pursuers hesitated to follow. Then he had spent an anxious hour trying to get through an outpost line, which he thought was Boche. Only by overhearing an exchange of oaths in the accents of Dundee did he realize that it was our own … It was a comfort to have Lefroy back, for he was both stout-hearted and resourceful. But I found that I had a division only on paper. It was about the strength of a brigade, the brigades battalions, and the battalions companies.