Miraculously, I breathlessly reached the sunken road, practically leaping the last yard or two and diving into its shelter. Picking myself up and looking around, my God, what a sight! The whole of the road was strewn with dead and dying men.

Some were talking deliriously, others calling for help and asking for water… Once more we sprang into that fusillade of bullets. In a few moments I must have been alone and quickly decided to drop into a shell-hole…. I could look back over no-man's-land towards our trenches. Hundreds of dead lay about and wounded men were trying to crawl back to safety; their heart rending cries for help could be heard above the noise of rifle fire and bursting shells.

Cpl George Ashurst, My Bit