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Up To Mametz by Wyn Griffith This is the rare 1931 Edition “Added to the burden of fatigue and grief we were governed by a dark feeling of personal failure. Mametz Wood was taken, but not by us, it seemed; we were the rejected of Destiny, men whose services were not required. The dead were the chosen, and Fate had forgotten us in its eager clutching at the men who fell; they were the richer prize. They captured Mametz Wood, and in it they lie.” Front cover and spine Further images of this book are shown below Publisher and place of publication Dimensions in inches (to the nearest quarter-inch) London: Faber and Faber Limited 5 inches wide x 7½ inches tall Edition Length 1931 238 pages Condition of covers Internal condition Original brown cloth blocked in black. The covers are rubbed and the cloth is lifting slightly in places (mainly along the edges : please see the images below). The spine ends and corners are bumped. The spine is dull and there is a shallow vertical crease. There is a spine lean. There are no internal markings and the text is clean throughout; however, there are a few spots on the “Contents” and facing page (please see the image below). There is an old “Foyles” bookshop sticker on the front pastedown. The paper has tanned with age. There are a few spots of foxing on the edge of the text block . There is some play in the inner hinges. Dust-jacket present? Other comments No Showing some signs of age, and with a spine lean, but, all things considered, a very presentable example of the rare 1931 edition. There were apparently two bindings of this edition, one in blue cloth gilt and a second in brown cloth blocked in black. Lt. Wyn Griffith was born in Wales in 1890 and became a Civil Servant with the Inland Revenue, and also studied law. At the outbreak of the Great War he joined the Army as a Private and was commissioned soon after with the 15th Royal Welch Fusiliers. He served throughout the war and latterly on the Staff. It was his experiences during the 38th (Welsh) Division’s heroic attempts to capture Mametz Wood in July 1916 which provided the germ for the present book. After the war Griffith returned to the Inland Revenue and reached the grade of Assistant Secretary, retiring in 1962. He became Vice Chairman of the Arts Council, was a noted broadcaster and held office with many literary bodies. He was awarded the OBE (Military) and received an honorary degree of D. Litt. from the University of Wales and in 1961 was made a CBE. Griffith died in September 1977. Illustrations, maps, etc Contents NONE : No illustrations are called for Please see below for details Post & shipping information Payment options The packed weight is approximately 600 grams. Full shipping/postage information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. Payment options : UK bidders: cheque (in GBP), debit card, credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal International bidders: credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal Full payment information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. Up To Mametz Contents Introduction I Prentice Days II Command III Mud IV Alarms and Diversions V South VI Mametz Wood VII The Gleaning Up To Mametz Mametz Wood At seven in the morning, Brigade Headquarters was to ‘close down’ at one place and to ‘open’ at another. This has a sound of the impossible in it, but it is easily resolved into a problem of telephone communication. if there is a telephone at the new headquarters, giving a means of speech backward to Divisional Headquarters and forward to Battalion Headquarters, the command of the brigade can be as well exercised from the new hole in the ground as from the old For in this war, a telephone wire was not only the outward sign of command, but the life-blood of its existence, a General without a telephone was to all practical purposes impotent, a lay figure dressed in uniform, deprived of eyes, arms and ears All through the night the signallers had worked at their task of picking and choosing the right wire from the tangled mass of tendrils that wound round post and trench in this desperate jungle, following the wire across country, testing it in sections, until the welcome sound of the right voice in response brought an end to their search. A chance shell, or the unlucky stumble of a passer-by, might cut the wire and send weary men out again on their search. In the stuffy darkness of the old German dug-out an orderly lit a candle and roused us to say that it was half-past four. I swung my feet over the side of the wire-net mattress and stumbled up the stairs into the thin chill of the dawn, stupid and less than half awake, conscious chiefly of the difficulty of keeping my eyes from closing, and of a clammy, bitter-tasting thirst, a legacy from a short and too heavy sleep in a musty dug-out. Shivering and stretching, stamping my feet on the duckboards, swinging my arms like a cab-driver, I walked along towards the sound of a crackling wood fire and its promise of a cup of tea. There was an unnatural stillness in the air. No guns were firing, no transport moving. A thin column of smoke was rising slowly, twisting and swaying idly in the thin light. The whole world seemed to have slackened its pace to the merest saunter through the sky, with no perceptible disturbance of the morning air, without song of bird or step of man. A vague unreality had taken the place of the visible and audible environment, concealing all the muddle and horrors of the day before, revealing nothing but a sleeping shape stretching out over the chalky downs, blackening the light greenish-grey of the landscape. As the light grew stronger, this straggling trail of black hardened into its distinguishable components; wagons, dumps of ammunition and stores, battery after battery of guns, big and small. A little below the dug-out, in the dip between it and the ground rising up towards Mametz, a string of guns squatted in a row, and from underneath a bivouac a gunner crept out, stretched himself and walked through the line of guns to a stake in the ground. From this he removed a lamp. Other men followed him, appearing mysteriously from nowhere, and soon there was a bustle of life in this tiny village of nomads. Far away to the South a shell burst in the empty air. Somewhere behind our hill a big gun fired, another followed it, and suddenly the battery below blasted a stuttering sentence of noises. The Devil had taken his seat at the keyboard to play the opening bars of his morning hymn; another day beginning, the last day for so many, a fine sunny day to devote to killing and bruising. Was it my last day? With a wise obstinacy, the mind refused to dwell on such a thought, and the signalman in my brain shunted such futile traffic into some siding, giving the right of way to the greater utility of a desire for a cup of tea. I found some biscuit and a tin of jam, and sat on an ammunition box near the fire, eating and drinking in silence. When I had finished I went down into the dug-out for my shaving tackle, and as I descended the steps into a crescendo of foul stuffiness I wondered how I had dared to sleep in such a cesspool of smells, and hurried back to the trench to shave. When I came back to the fire I found Taylor, the Brigade Signalling Officer, seated on a box and drinking his cup of tea. He was a man of forty, quietly carrying about him a reserved air of authority and competence, unhurried in movement and in speech. The technical nature of his work preserved him from interference, and he ruled over his kingdom of men with a certainty of control denied to an infantry officer. No Brigadier could dispute with him concerning the wisdom or unwisdom of his dispositions of men or material. His duty was to give others a means of speech, and as he never failed in his task, his competency was obvious to all. This morning his face was as grey as his hair, and his eyes were dull and tired. I greeted him and sat down by his side. ‘When did you finish your job?’ I asked him. ‘I’ve just come from there now, and I’m going back with some more men as soon as they have had a bite of food. It’s a long tramp from here to Pommiers Redoubt, and I lost my way coming back. . . . Lost two men on the job already!’ ‘Killed?’ I asked. ‘No, both wounded – shrapnel in the leg. I had a terrible job to get them away. We were out on a line across country and I couldn’t find a battalion or anybody likely to have stretcher-bearers. I tied them up as well as I could and went out on a search. I left my torch with them in case I couldn’t find my way back in the dark. Just as I was giving it up and going back to them, a gun went off near me, a blaze of light and a hell of a noise. I was down on my face before you could say ‘knife’, and I crept along till I got a bit nearer, and then I shouted. A gunner came out and yelled to me to come in quickly before they fired again. So I got some stretcher-bearers and got my lads away. Two good men, just when I most wanted them. Still, they are well out of it, poor devils, with a day like this in front of them.’ ‘What’s It like at Pommiers Redoubt?’ I asked. ‘Just like any other hole in the ground. There’s some heavy artillery headquarters there, and we may be glad of their lines before the day is out. . . . There’s a lot of our fellows out there not buried yet. . . . You know old Evans the padre?’ ‘Yes, I know him.’ ‘I met him this morning, half an hour ago, just as it was getting light. He was going to do a bit of burying. I thought he looked queer… he was talking to himself, praying, may be, when I walked along with him. It was in North Wales Welsh, and I couldn’t make much of it. I got talking to him, and I asked him why he was up so early. He said he hadn’t been to bed. He went towards Fricourt yesterday evening looking for a grave. Someone you knew, said I. . Yes, my own boy’s grave, said he.’ ‘Good God, I knew young Evans well – he was in the ranks with me,’ I answered. ‘Well, Evans, poor chap, had heard yesterday evening that his boy was killed near Fricourt the day before, so he went off at once to try to find his grave. He walked about for hours, but couldn’t find any one who knew where it was, nor could he find the padre who buried him. He walked till he could walk no more, got a cup of tea from some gunners, and had a rest, and then walked back here. And now he’s out again. Going to bury other people’s boys, he said, since he couldn’t find his own boy’s grave to pray over. . . . What could you say? I left him to turn up to this place. . . my Welsh isn’t very good, as you know, but I managed to say to him, “I’m not a soldier now, padre; I’m taking off my hat to you.” And so I did, I took off my tin helmet. . . . You couldn’t talk English to a man who had lost his boy. . . .’ ‘No. . . not to a Welshman,’ I replied. ‘But there’s a man for you, Gruff. . . off to bury other men’s boys at five in the morning, and maybe his own son not buried yet, a couple of miles away. There was some shrapnel overhead, but I saw him going up the slope as if he were alone in the world. if I come through this bloody business, I’d like to go to that man’s church. The only thing he said that I could make out was that bit of a Welsh hymn-you’ll know it, the one they sing at funerals to that tune that curdles your blood worse than the Dead March. . . . Well, this is no time to be talking of funerals, I’m going back to Pommiers Redoubt-are you coming with me?’ ‘I might as well,’ I replied, ‘I’m doing nothing here, but I’d better ask the Brigade Major first, in case he wants me.’ The Brigade Major, after some years in the East, was not at his best in the early morning, and in the minimum of words, told me that I could go. Taylor was stuffing some biscuits into his haversack when I came back to him. ‘You’d better do the same,’ he said. ‘You never know where you might land up to-day.’ ‘Cheer up, Taylor,’ I answered. ‘There are so many of us about to-day that you and I might well be booked for a through trip.’ I cut off a hunk of cheese and put it in my haversack with some biscuits, and filled my water-bottle: pipe, tobacco, matches, maps, note-book, orders-I made sure that these were On or about me. We set off up the hill, passing the grey and red ruins of Mametz village on our left as we walked up towards Pommiers Redoubt. The guns were firing, and an occasional shell-burst crashed through the air with a venomous answer. Transport was crawling about in the distance, small groups of men were moving, dark against the white gashes in the chalk. Scattered equipment lying about underfoot, tangles of wire, small dumps of forgotten stores, all left behind in the advance. Other things were left behind in the advance, part of the purchase price of this downland, grim disfigured corpses rotting in the sun, so horrible in their discolour that it called for an act of faith to believe that these were once men, young men, sent to this degradation by their fellow men. One thought ran in and out of the mind like a shuttle in a loom; any one of the thousands of seconds in this July day might reduce Taylor or myself into a like travesty of living man, useless lumber best thrown away near some such heap of rubble as Mametz, ‘where Ruin calls his brother Death’. There was some comfort in the thought that my wife did not know that this day held for me any fuller measure of danger than any other day of war, that for her there was no greater straining of the tense string that ran from hope to fear. And if I were killed, I would turn from man to memory in her heart without leaving a mutilated shell of flesh to haunt her eyes. ‘I haven’t seen anything of my young brother for some days,’ I said to Taylor. ‘I wonder what he is doing. He’s such a kid, for all his uniform. He ought to be still in school, not in this bloody shambles.’ ‘He’s all right,’ replied Taylor. ‘I saw him last night. The brigade called for two runners from each battalion, and he came as one of them – he’s somewhere near that old German dug-out we came from.’ ‘I wish I’d known. It was his birthday two days ago, and I’ve got a little present for him in my valise. I wonder if he’ll ever see another birthday. . . . I don’t know how I could face my mother if anything happened to him and I got through.’ ‘Well, he’s got a chance, Gruff – he might be in the line. What do you think of our job to-day?’ ‘The General was cursing last night at his orders. He said that only a madman could have issued them. He called the Divisional Staff a lot of plumbers, herring-gutted at that. He argued at the time, and asked for some control over the artillery that is going to cover us, but he got nothing out of them. We are not allowed to attack at dawn; we must wait for the show at Contalmaison, well away on our left.’ ‘We’ll get a good view of that show from Pommiers Redoubt.’ ‘I dare say, but don’t you think that it is a funny thing to keep us waiting in the lobby? We are going to attack Mametz Wood from one side, and Contalmaison is on the other side of the Wood-why shouldn’t both attacks be made at the same time? It would spread out the German fire.’ ‘I suppose it would spread out ours too,’ said Taylor, ‘but if you are going to start asking “Why” about orders you’ll soon be off the Staff or off your head. You might as well say, “Why attack the Wood at all?” ‘But I do say that, Taylor. Look at it now- it’s a forest. What damage can our guns do to that place? if you had a good dug-out near the edge of that wood, and a machine-gun, how many men would you allow to cross that slope leading up to the Wood? You’d mow them down as soon as they stood up.’ We had reached the high ground at Pommiers Redoubt, and, standing in a trench, scanning the Wood with our glasses, it seemed as thick as a virgin forest. There was no sign of life in it, no one could say whether it concealed ten thousand men or ten machine guns. Its edges were clean cut, as far as the eye could see, and the ground between us and the Wood was bare of any cover. Our men were assembled in trenches above a dip in the ground, and from these they were to advance, descend into the hollow, and cross the bare slope in the teeth of the machine-gunners in the Wood. On their right, as they advanced across the bullet-swept zone, they would be exposed to enfilade fire, for the direction of their advance was nearly parallel to the German trenches towards Bazentin, and it would be folly to suppose that the German machine-guns were not sited to sweep that slope leading to the Wood. ‘I’m not surprised that the General cursed when he got his orders,’ said Taylor. ‘The truth about the Brigadier is that he’s got too much sense. He was soldiering when some of the fellows above him were still playing marbles. I’m going to see my signallers. . . I’ll see you later.’ A little further along the trench a group of officers were engaged in a discussion over a map spread out on a box. I went up to speak to them, and found that this was the headquarters of a group of Heavy Artillery concerned in the bombardment of Contalmaison, and about to wipe it off the map, as I gathered. Taylor came up out of a dug-out. ‘We’re through to the old Brigade Headquarters, the Division, and to the battalions. How long we’ll be through to the battalions is another story,’ he said. The General arrived with the Brigade Major and the Staff Captain, looked around him quickly, and turned to me. ‘Have you found a good place for us?’ ‘Yes sir, there’s room in the signallers’ dugout, but this is a good place for seeing.’ ‘It’s close on seven o’clock. Are we through to everybody, and have the battalions reported that they are in position?’ he asked. ‘Yes sir.’ ‘Then send out the report that Brigade Headquarters has opened here. You stay with me, and be ready to take down any orders or messages when the time comes.’ With this he went to consult with the Brigade Major. I stood on a step in the side of the trench, studying the country to the East and identifying the various features from the map. Our guns were quiet, and, although everybody within sight was moving, there was a weird stillness in the air, a brooding menace. Why was I standing here when men I knew were lined up in readiness to expose their bodies to a driving sleet of lead? The thought of the days’ torment, doomed, as I thought, from its beginning, to bring no recompense, weighed like a burden of iron. The sound of a heavy bombardment, some distance away to our left, broke in upon the silence and grew to a storm of noise and smoke. Cont-al-maison was the target, prominent upon a hill until the smoke obscured the hill-top, turning it into a dark cloud hung between a blue sky and brown-pitted earth. Out of this cloud, at intervals of some minutes, an orange sheet of flame made an effort to escape, only to be conquered and smudged out by the all-pervading smoke. It did not seem possible that there could be guns enough in France to create such a fury as this, and my mind went back to the artillery fire of 1915 and early 1916. Our trench bombardments were things of no importance when contrasted with this, and I felt half ashamed to remember that they had frightened me. At eight o’clock the artillery began its bombardment of the edge of Mametz Wood. A thousand yards away from where I stood, our two battalions were waiting. I read the orders again. The attack was to be carried out in three stages, beginning at half-past eight, reaching in succession three positions inside the Wood, under the protection of an artillery barrage. Smoke screens were to be formed here and there. Everything sounded so simple and easy. A few minutes after eight, all our telephone wires to the battalions were cut by the enemy’s reply to our fire. There was no smoke screen, for some reason never explained-perhaps someone forgot about it. This was the first departure from the simplicity of the printed word. Messages came through, a steady trickle of runners bringing evil news; our fire had not masked the German machine-guns in Mametz Wood, nor in the wood near Bazentin. The elaborate time-table suddenly became a thing of no meaning, as unrelated to our condition as one of Napoleon’s orders; our artillery barrage was advancing in mockery of our failure, for we were two hundred yards away from the Wood. A message arrived from the Division. In twenty minutes’ time, the artillery would begin another bombardment of the edge of the Wood, and under cover of this we were to renew the attack – in twenty minutes. We were a thousand yards away from the battalions, with no telephone communication; there were maps at Divisional Headquarters, they knew where we were, they knew where the battalions were, and they knew that our lines were cut. A simple sum in arithmetic. . . . Our operation was isolated; no one was attacking on either flank of our Brigade, so that there was complete freedom of choice as to time. With all the hours of the clock to choose from, some master-mind must needs select the only hour to be avoided. He did not ask himself whether the order could reach its ultimate destination in time . . . the answer to that sum in arithmetic. Every attempt to move near the Wood was met by a burst of frontal and enfilade machine-gun fire. Shells were falling, taking a steady toll of lives. Later, another order came from Divisional Headquarters. We were to attack again, to make a third effort to penetrate this wall of lead. The General gave some orders to his Brigade-Major, called me to accompany him, and we set out for Caterpillar Wood and to reach the battalions. Although the day was fine, the heavy rains of the preceding days had turned the chalky soil into a stiff glue. The hurry in our minds accentuated the slowness of our progress, and I felt as if some physical force was dragging me back. Haste meant a fall into a shell hole, for we had abandoned the attempt to move along the trench. Shrapnel was bursting overhead, and a patter of machine-gun bullets spat through the air. We passed through Caterpillar Wood, and in a disused trench on our left I saw an Artillery officer. I turned off to ask him whether his telephone was working, and learned that he was in communication with a Heavy Artillery Group somewhere beyond Pommiers Redoubt. I ran down the trench to rejoin the General, and we dropped down the bank into the nullah between Caterpillar Wood and Mametz Wood, passing a stream of ‘walking wounded’ making their way out. There was a dug-out in the bank, with scores of stretchers down on the ground in front, each stretcher occupied by a fellow creature, maimed and in pain. This was the Advance Dressing Station; twenty rounds of shrapnel would have made stretchers unnecessary. Along the bare ridge rising up to Mametz Wood our men were burrowing into the ground with their entrenching tools, seeking whatever cover they might make. A few shells were falling, surprisingly few. Wounded men were crawling back from the ridge, men were crawling forward with ammunition. No attack could succeed over such ground as this, swept from front and side by machine-guns at short range. Down in the nullah we were out of sight of the enemy, but fifteen minutes of shrapnel would have reduced the brigade to a battalion, and every minute that passed seemed to bring nearer the hour of our inevitable annihilation. We were caught in a trap, unable to advance, unable to withdraw without being observed. It must ever remain one of the many mysteries of the War why the enemy did not pound us with shell fire, for this was so obviously the only place of assembly. The time was drawing near for the renewal of the attack, for another useless slaughter. Casualties in officers had been extremely heavy, and the battalions were somewhat disorganized. ‘This is sheer lunacy,’ said the General. ‘I’ve tried all day to stop it. We could creep up to the edge of the Wood by night and rush it in the morning, but they won’t listen to me. . . . It breaks my heart to see all this.’ ‘If I could get you through on the telephone, would you talk to them again?’ I asked. ‘Of course I would, but all the wires are cut, and there is no time to go back.’ ‘I know of a telephone to an Artillery Group, and they might get you through to the Division,’ I answered. ‘Find out at once whether I can get through,’ he replied. I hurried up to the trench where I had seen the Artillery officer and found that his wires were still uncut, and as I ran back to the General I prayed in my heart that they would hold; the lives of some hundreds of men depended upon it. It did not occur to me that words sent along that wire might fail in their object, that someone sitting far away would look at a map and say, ‘No, you must reach that Wood at all costs.’ Seen in its stark reality, our position was so hopeless that a dispassionate account of it must convince any one, even at a distance of six miles, that to remain where we were would be no less calamitous than to try to advance. The enemy had shown no desire to hold that exposed ridge with men, for his bullets were defence enough, and in a short space of time his artillery must realize that there was a magnificent target in that hollow between the ridge and the bank. When I came back to the hollow, I could not find the General. I ran from one group of men to another, working my way up the ridge, until I found him organizing the defence of the position against any possible counter-attack. Shells did not seem to matter; my whole existence, up to that very minute, had been of no importance to the world, but my original conversation with that Artillery officer, so obviously prompted by what men call Destiny, could lead to the saving of hundreds of lives, and must not fail to do so. I knew that I had been ‘chosen’ for this. Ten minutes later I sat in the trench while the General spoke on the telephone, tersely describing the utter folly of any course of action other than a gradual withdrawal under cover of outposts, and quoting figures of our casualties. He was arguing with determination. There was opposition, but he won. As I jumped up to start On our way back to the ridge, he stopped me. ‘Wait a minute. They are shelling this bank, and this message must get through. Give me a sheet of paper,’ said he. He wrote down his order for the withdrawal and gave it to me. ‘You go one way, and I’ll go another way. Join me in the hollow. Go as fast as you can.’ With this he went down the trench, and I ran and stumbled down the bank, still feeling perfectly safe in the hands of Destiny. Two hours later the General and I were dragging our way from the nullah and back towards Pommiers Redoubt. We sat down in a trench to let a file of men pass by, and I suddenly noticed that his face was grey and drawn. ‘Have you eaten anything since this morning?’ I asked him. ‘No. . . have you?’ he replied. ‘I feel whacked.’ ‘Will you wait here a few minutes – I’ll be back soon,’ I said. I had seen a dug-out, and I went inside it. Some signallers were lighting a fire to boil a mess-tin full of water; they lent me an enamel cup, and in it I put a tablet of compressed tea. The brew was strong and the water was not boiling, but it was a warm drink, and I took it back to the General. It revived him, and we munched our biscuits as we walked along. Back again to Pommiers Redoubt, but with a difference, in the flat greyness of approaching dusk. The noise of the guns had died down to a sullen scale-practice, with an occasional, and almost accidental chord, so different from the crashes of the day. Stretcher-bearers, bowed forward under their straps, were carrying their burdens of suffering across the ploughed and pitted slopes. ‘How did you come to find that telephone?’ asked the General. ‘I happened to notice the Artillery officer on my way down, and I went to ask him if his line back was working. Don’t you remember my leaving you?’ ‘No, I don’t remember. . . . Well, it saved the lives of some hundreds of men, but it has put an end to me.’ ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘I spoke my mind about the whole business…you heard me. They wanted us to press on at all costs, talked about determination, and suggested that I didn’t realize the importance of the operation. As good as told me that I was tired and didn’t want to tackle the job. Difficult to judge on the spot, they said! As if the whole trouble hadn’t arisen because someone found it so easy to judge when he was six miles away and had never seen the country, and couldn’t read a map. You mark my words, they’ll send me home for this: they want butchers, not brigadiers. They’ll remember now that I told them, before we began, that the attack could not succeed unless the machine guns were masked. I shall be in England in a month.’ He had saved the Brigade from annihilation. That the rescue, in terms of men, was no more than a respite of days was no fault of his, for there is no saving of life in war until the eleventh hour of the last day is drawing to an end. It was nearly midnight when we heard that the last of our men had withdrawn from that ridge and valley, leaving the ground empty, save for the bodies of those who had to fall to prove to our command that machine guns can defend a bare slope. Six weeks later the General went home. The next day brought no time for crying over spilt milk. The Staff Captain had become a casualty, and had been evacuated as a shellshock case, so that it fell to my lot to do his work, poorly equipped as I was for the task. For the first time I realized that, battle or no battle, reports must be made, returns prepared, and administrative work must continue as if we were all in barracks. I did my best, but if there are lacunæ in the statistics, memoranda ‘lost’ and unanswered, mine must be the blame. The General and the Brigade Major were so concerned with matters of war that I could not in very shame intrude upon their consultations to ask advice on questions that appeared to me to lack fundamental importance On paper, I promised where I did not perform, and, over the telephone, parried all demands from the Division. The two remaining brigades of the Division were to attack Mametz Wood in the afternoon of the following day, and we were to be in reserve, ready to take over the defence of the wood if the attack succeeded. This venture was differently staged. A narrower front gave promise of greater support from the artillery, and the approach, bad as it was, did not make success impossible. Until we were called upon to fight, the brigade was to spend its time carrying and working for the others, in spite of our exhaustion in numbers and in strength. At the last moment, the attack was postponed for twelve hours, and it was not until dawn on the i oth July that the flower of young Wales stood up to the machine-guns, with a success that astonished all who knew the ground. Two of our battalions had become involved in the fighting in the Wood, and at five o’clock in the afternoon, our brigade was ordered to relieve the attacking brigades and to take over the responsibility for the defence of the sector against any counter-attacks. It was five o’clock in the morning before this relief was completed. A little before dawn, the General and the Brigade Major went up to the Wood, leaving me to follow them at midday. At seven in the morning, as I was wrestling with some papers that I did not understand, a runner came in with a message from the General. The Brigade Major had been wounded, and I was to go up at once to join the General in the Wood. This, at any rate, was a man’s job, and I left the papers in their disarray. A month ago, my military horizon was bounded by the limits of a company of infantry; now I was to be both Brigade Major and Staff Captain to a Brigadier-General in the middle of a battle. I consoled myself with the thought that if I could originate nothing, I could do what I was told to do. I passed through two barrages before I reached the Wood, one aimed at the body, and the other at the mind. The enemy was shelling the approach from the South with some determination, but I was fortunate enough to escape injury and to pass On to an ordeal ever greater. Men of my old battalion were lying dead on the ground in great profusion. They wore a yellow badge on their sleeves, and without this distinguishing mark, it would have been impossible to recognize the remains of many of them. I felt that I had run away. Please note: to avoid opening the book out, with the risk of damaging the spine, some of the pages were slightly raised on the inner edge when being scanned, which has resulted in some blurring to the text and a shadow on the inside edge of the final images. Colour reproduction is shown as accurately as possible but please be aware that some colours are difficult to scan and may result in a slight variation from the colour shown below to the actual colour. Some of the illustrations may be shown enlarged for greater detail and clarity. IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR PROSPECTIVE BIDDERS U.K. Bidders: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figures below. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from postage and packaging. Postage can be combined for multiple purchases. Packed weight of this item : approximately 600 grams Postage and payment options to U.K. addresses: Details of the various postage options (for example, First Class, First Class Recorded, Second Class and/or Parcel Post if the item is heavy) can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above). Payment can be made by: debit card, credit card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex), cheque (payable to “G Miller”, please), or PayPal. Please contact me with name, address and payment details within seven days of the end of the auction; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the auction and re-list the item. International Bidders: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figures below. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from shipping and handling. Shipping can usually be combined for multiple purchases (to a maximum of 5 kilograms in any one parcel with the exception of Canada, where the limit is 2 kilograms). Packed weight of this item : approximately 600 grams International Shipping options: Details of the postage options to various countries (via Air Mail) can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above) and then selecting your country of residence from the drop-down list. For destinations not shown or other requirements, please contact me before bidding. Tracked and “Signed For” services are also available if required, but at an additional charge to that shown on the Postage and payments page, which is for ordinary uninsured Air Mail delivery. Due to the extreme length of time now taken for deliveries, surface mail is no longer a viable option and I am unable to offer it even in the case of heavy items. I am afraid that I cannot make any exceptions to this rule. Payment options for international bidders: Payment can be made by: all major credit cards (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex) or PayPal. I can also accept a cheque in GBP [British Pounds Sterling] but only if drawn on a major British bank. Regretfully, due to extremely high conversion charges, I CANNOT accept foreign currency : all payments must be made in GBP [British Pounds Sterling]. This can be accomplished easily using a credit card, which I am able to accept as I have a separate, well-established business. Please contact me with your name and address and payment details within seven days of the end of the auction; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the auction and re-list the item Prospective international bidders should ensure that they are able to provide credit card details or pay by PayPal within 7 days from the end of the auction (or inform me that they will be sending a cheque in GBP drawn on a major British bank). Thank you. (please note that the book shown is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of this auction) Book dimensions are given in inches, to the nearest quarter-inch, in the format width x height. Please note that, to differentiate them from soft-covers and paperbacks, modern hardbacks are still invariably described as being ‘cloth’ when they are, in fact, predominantly bound in paper-covered boards pressed to resemble cloth. Fine Books for Fine Minds I value your custom (and my feedback rating) but I am also a bibliophile : I want books to arrive in the same condition in which they were dispatched. For this reason, all books are securely wrapped in tissue and a protective covering and are then posted in a cardboard container. If any book is significantly not as described, I will offer a full refund. Unless the size of the book precludes this, hardback books with a dust-jacket are usually provided with a clear film protective cover, while hardback books without a dust-jacket are usually provided with a rigid clear cover. The Royal Mail, in my experience, offers an excellent service, but things can occasionally go wrong. However, I believe it is my responsibility to guarantee delivery. If any book is lost or damaged in transit, I will offer a full refund. Thank you for looking. Please also view my other auctions for a range of interesting books and feel free to contact me if you require any additional information Design and content © Geoffrey Miller