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Description: | image: Four stretcher-bearers carry a wounded man through a devastated landscape. The body of another soldier floats face
down in a water-filled shell hole in the foreground.
Extracts of letters from Dept of Documents PP/MCR/333
Letter to his parents, 7 January 1918 - "I thought it was going to be quite decent on Xmas Day, but unfortunately a sad thing occurred:
about 1 a.m. Captain Brownsword came round visiting. He bent down to drop in on my post. I said, 'Hurry up, get down quick!' but
unfortunately he was not quick enough; there was a crack & I knew he was hit in the back, & he just toppled down and I caught him with my
arms. Then the difficulty, imagine it, of looking after a man 6 foot 3, in a bit of trench half the width of your kitchen, and no longer;
partly filled too with a fire step. I had to sit on the step, and hold him across my knees, while the stretcher bearer dressed him. Our
stretcher was broken, & with difficulty we got another, one bearer being shot through the head bringing it..."
"...Ultimately we got the Captain on a stretcher on the fire step. Then there was nothing to be done but to wait for daylight, being too
risky to get him out then, in view of the snow and the bright moonlight, the Germans being as near as 60 yards. It seemed a very long time
till 7.30, & we could not keep him warm. I could feel that his arms were just as icy cold as his hands, & feared for his life. When
daylight came we put out the Red Cross Flag (a mutual arrangement of that part of the front) & four men having been told off for the work,
we hoisted the stretcher out of the hole & got him safely away. I heard afterwards that they carried him miles without incident, but only
to have him die from exhaustion within sight of the dressing station." | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | 8th Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps British Army 14th Division 41st Brigade | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Williamson, Harold Sandys | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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