In this desperate position a man who belonged to the Cornwall Light Infantry was shot just below the left ear. He was knocked down, but got up, and kept saying, “Help me! Help me!”
I shouted to him to lie down and keep under cover, but he took no notice, and kept on calling for help. He came up to me, and when he was near enough I pulled him down and forced him to lie on the ground. All this time there was a very heavy fire. We were getting shots from the front and on our flanks, and there was nothing for it but to get away as best we could.
I could not bear the thought of leaving this Cornwall man where he was, so I took him up and began to carry him, but it was very slow going. It was all uphill, the ground was sodden with rain, and I had to force a way through a field of turnips, which were growing as high as my knees. It was bad enough to make one’s own way through such a tangle as that; but I am young and strong, and I managed to make progress, although I was hit five different times--not hurt, but struck, a shot, for instance, hitting my cap, another my water-bottle, and another the sleeve of my coat.
After going a long distance, as it seemed, and feeling utterly exhausted, I put my man down under what I thought was safe shelter. I wanted to give him a drink, but I could not do so, as the shot-hole in my water-bottle had let the water run to waste.
At last we reached a roadway, where we saw some more of our men, who had got there before us, and had commandeered a horseless cart and filled it with wounded men.
I got the wounded man into the cart, and then off we all went. It was as much as we could manage to get the cart along, for it was such a great big thing; but we worked it willingly, the officers taking their turn in the shafts.
We dragged the cart along the heavy roads, but it was such hard going that we saw that we should be forced to get a horse from somewhere; so we looked around at the first farm we came to--and a sorry place it was, with everything in confusion, and the animals about suffering terribly and starving--and there we found a horse of the largest size.
With great difficulty we got together bits of harness, string and rope, and tied the horse in the shafts with the ropes for traces, and when we had finished we did not know whether we had harnessed the horse or tied the cart on to it. Anyway, we got along very well after that.