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"When we walked over Wieltje we found our once 'strong point' no longer existent. The sandbags were scattered all over. Yet in the mine below in the estam General Stockwell had his Headquarters. "We were sent on from aid-post to aid-post. They were all crowded with wounded. The number of 'walking cases' was very large. At Potijze we were again sent on.
We were in support in the Salient, in very uncomfortable trenches behind Wieltje, and I spent three days on my back in a dug-out. Outside was a blizzard of rain, and the water now and then came down the stairs through the gas curtain and stood in pools at my bed foot.
It opened again in June, but as all could not go at once it happened that some officers did not get leave for nine or ten months. After a few days in Potijze sector the Battalion sidestepped to the Wieltje sector. The tour here was characterised by intense enemy artillery activity.
So I was, at last, introduced to that strangest of all music the screech of a shell: Whoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-UMP! The 55th Division was responsible for the sector between Wieltje and the south of Railway Wood. The 55th Division was commanded by Major-General Jeudwine, of whom it has been said: "No General ever was more devoted to his Division: no Division ever was more devoted to its General."
He, Telfer, and I watched it all from the parapet of Durham Trench. The enemy were too preoccupied to trouble to shoot us! This went on for about half an hour. Then the enemy retaliated in a furious manner with his artillery. We made for Wieltje dug-out and were only just in time. Shells were falling everywhere in a continual succession.
As we reached La Bryke we met at the crossroads two British staff officers on horseback who wanted to know the way to Wieltje and General Hull's Headquarters there. One of them was Brigadier-General Riddell, who was killed a few hours later not far from St. Julien at the head of the brave Northumberland Brigade. He was shot through the head while personally conducting an attack to recover St.
During the tour in Wieltje the Battalion dug Hopkin's Trench in no man's land, under machine gun, granatenwerfer and rifle-grenade fire, which were the cause of several casualties. Fortunately there was a very good mined dugout at Wieltje containing many rooms which were lighted by electricity.
We waited until long after midnight for General Turner, V.C., and his staff, and when they did not appear we decided something must have happened to them. Silently in Indian file the brigade slipped quietly through Wieltje, led by one of my signallers, Sergeant Calder, who knew every hedge, ditch and by-way in the Ypres salient.
Dusk was awaited in a much war-worn trench in front of Wieltje. As daylight fades we file away, each man with his own thoughts. Whose turn is it to be this journey? Along the tortuous track of tipsy duckboards we go for a mile, until acrid fumes tell that the German barrage line is being passed. This is a moment to press on! To get the Company safely across this hundred yards is worth many a fall.
On September 7 Brown and myself went up through Ypres to view the scene of the attack. At Wieltje, where Colonel Wetherall and B and C Companies already were, we descended to a deep, wet dug-out and that night listened to a narrative brought by an officer who had participated in the last attempt to take the hill.
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