As we followed the ingoing communicating trench, part of which ran through the middle of the street, there were houses on both sides. These the German artillery was constantly playing on, so bricks and mortar flew in all directions. The few houses that had been left standing were demolished as if they had been made of cardboard. You can well imagine that when a shell hit anywhere near a house it made things very unpleasant for those of us passing through these trenches.
The platoon officer, who had preceded me, had evidently got out of the communicating trench to see how his men were coming up from the rear. When I passed him he was lying on the sidewalk. I did not think at that time he was dangerously wounded as he waved his hand to me. I could not stop to give him any attention for, although he was my best friend, my duty was imperative and I had to lead my men onwards. I therefore shouted for the stretcher bearer from his platoon and gave the necessary instructions for his care. I regretted very much to hear that he passed away in a few hours after receiving his wound.
By the time we reached the firing line, which was directly in front of the Cité St. Edouard (also a suburb of Lens), I had eight casualties. Three men had been killed, and five wounded. The wounded had been given every attention and sent back to the rear. The leading platoon was now in charge of the platoon sergeant, a very capable man who had taken charge of the platoon whilst in practice for this attack. All the other N.C.O.'s had also been trained to do this, so that in case any platoon officer became a casualty they would be able to carry on.
As we arrived at the firing line the holding troops were "standing to" on the fire step. We could thus pass along in their rear. Guides were assigned to each platoon to show us the openings that had been made in our barbed wire so that we could then get into No Man's Land without being obliged to cut the wire. During this time the Huns were incessantly sending up their star shells and other coloured rockets.
I gave the necessary instructions to N.C.O.'s in charge of sections, and then we crawled out through the barbed wire and got into shell holes. The Huns at this time were firing "whizz bangs" and Minenwerfers at our front line, these being short ranged shells. As the German star shells illuminated the ground, I noticed that the barbed wire had not been altogether destroyed by our artillery. This was probably due to the fact of the close proximity of the two opposing lines, which prevented our artillery from concentrating its fire as they would have done if we had been further apart. It was for this reason that the No. 1 section of each platoon had been supplied with special rifle wire cutters.