The back lash of the deadly
visitor, however, ripped the life out of the men waiting for supper at
the cookhouse and the side lash of its stroke caught the men in the
right hand side dugout in which were two soldiers sitting on a box,
munching biscuits. One of them had the upper half of his head blown off,
scattering the blood and brains over his chum, who escaped without a
scratch.
I reached the gun pit about one minute after the explosion. God in
Heaven! What a sight met my eyes! The floor of the pit was strewn with
the men in all directions, six of them dead and the balance fearfully
wounded. I dashed out for stretcher bearers and Fritz just then started
increasing his fire; he had kept an eye on the men running through the
trench to the gun pit. He therefore knew that there must be a nest of us
there.
In spite of the gain in the enemy's gunfire, we started our wounded pals
to the officers' dugouts; most of the lads had been so severely
shell-shocked that we had a most trying time to keep them in their
stretchers. Men who have been shell-shocked most usually exhibit it by
wanting to run off in all directions; I have seen them with wounds that
ordinarily would cause them to collapse, but under the influence of the
shock exert themselves with such strength and violence that it would
take a couple of sturdy men to hold them.
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