Under a terrible fire we made for the parapet and got on to it as best we could. I was the last man but one to get on to it. Just in front of me was Lance-corporal Gibson, and just behind me was Private Bailey. With the Germans so near, so many of them, and keeping up such a heavy fire on us, you can imagine what it meant to crawl along a twisted parapet like that. The marvel is that a single one of us escaped, but a few of us did, which was no credit to the German marksmanship. The bullets whizzed and whistled around us and very soon both the man in front of me and the man behind were struck. The corporal was knocked straight over and disappeared. Bailey was shot through the instep, but he managed to hold on to the parapet, and to make a very singular request. “Mont,” he said, “come and take my boot off!” I turned round and saw what had happened to him; but, of course, it wasn’t possible to do what he asked, when it needed every bit of one’s strength and skill to hang on to the parapet and keep crawling, so I cried back, “Never mind about taking your boot off--come on!” It was no use saying anything; poor chap, he would insist on having his boot off, so I said, “For Heaven’s sake get along, or we shall all get knocked over!” And with that I started to crawl again, and to get ahead as best I could. The corporal, as I have said, had gone; he had been hit right between the shoulder-blades, and I just saw him roll over into the horrible barbed-wire entanglements. What exactly happened to poor Bailey I don’t know. I hadn’t a chance of looking back, but I heard afterwards that both he and the corporal were found lying there, dead, with their faces spattered with blood. At last, after what seemed like a miraculous escape, I got clear of the parapet, with a few more, and landed safely on the other side of the canal, looking for the West Kents; but it had been impossible to re-form any battalion, and regiments were walking about like flocks of sheep. Efforts were being made to re-form our own men, but at that time there was no chance of doing so. It was the sight of these disorganised and wandering soldiers that brought to my mind the picture of the retreat from Moscow. It was not until we reached Le Cateau that the handful of us rejoined the regiment, and so far as fighting went we merely changed from bad to worse. At Le Cateau the West Kents held the second line of trenches, and the Yorkshire Light Infantry were in the first line, so that we were supporting them. We had the 121st and 122nd Batteries of the Royal Field Artillery in front of us--and no troops could wish for better gunners than the British.