We found out by this time we had lost quite a few of our best officers; out of our company we had lost one of the finest men that ever went over. He was a man that no matter how hard the bombardment, he was always normal and would never get excited--that was John Stairs. The O.C. of "B" Company, Colonel Flowers was also missing. He was not with us very long, but everybody thought a lot of him. It was splendid for a man of his age to come out and volunteer as a platoon commander as he did, and he deserves all the credit that can be given to him. We had a few others killed and missing, but taking everything into consideration and the objective that we had taken, we had come out very lucky.
Our boys were pretty well dug in by 12 that night. It was hard digging, about a foot of earth, then flint and underneath the flint was chalk.
The reaction had started to set in by this time. I cannot describe it to you properly, but there are a lot of people under the impression that a soldier gets a glass of rum before he "goes over." The reason I write about this is because people have often said the same thing about me. I'll tell you, the British soldier does not need rum to buck his courage up. I believe that it was given to the men before they went over in the beginning, and that after the effect wore off it left the man drowsy. Once you start "over," you do not give a curse for anything. All you think about is that there is an objective, and that there is nothing in this world to stop you and you keep that spirit up until you have everything securely in your hands, and then perhaps a couple of hours after a certain amount of reaction sets in. Then is the time for the rum. In France it is used, "never abused." The reaction generally works off after a few hours and then you are fit for anything.
During the night Fritz made several counter attacks on the 22nd. We were not quite sure how they were making out, but a runner came up and told us that everything was O.K.
I do not remember anything eventful happening that night. We had a couple killed, and Sergeant Tickle of the Machine Gun Section, whilst reconnoitering, ran into a German strong point. He bombed them and got back safely. But when daylight came there was quite a few of our chaps getting nipped off from the right, so a message was sent out to Major MacAvity, who was brigade major. He came up, and that afternoon the Third Division made an attack and took the trench from which they were sniping, and also 100 prisoners. We knew that there were papers of importance in a house in the village which had been used as headquarters and Fritz was quite determined that we should not get them, for he put shell after shell into the village. But whenever there is information to be had, there is somebody who will get it and we got those papers and believe me they proved to be of great significance.