DRUMMER AND A WOUNDED COMRADE  "WAITING OUR DEATH"  LUTON NEWS LETTER JANUARY 1915.

Drummer  E J Blagdon, of the 2nd Battalion Beds Regiment, describes some narrow escapes in a letter he has just written from the front - he says -

We were advancing across a field when they opened rapid shellfire on us and I was just missed by a shell but it smashed a fellow's leg.  He was next to me and a piece of the shell struck me in the breast but my small book in my breast-pocket saved it from being any damage.  It cut my pocket and smashed my book.  I sav ed the fellow's life who got his leg smashed.  Shells were bursting all round but I crept up and got him off the field into a gutter under a small hedge.  It seemed as though they were watching me for they shelled the hedge.  I saw them load the guns and fire and each time I thought we were going to get blown to pieces.  He told me to leave him and fly for my life but I would not go and dragged him behind a straw rick where I did his leg up and got some poles and made a stretcher.  Then they started shelling the rick to set fire to it.  I did not know what to do so I lay alongside of him.  We were awaiting our death.  To tell you the truth, I prayed.  They ceased firing a bit and I sat there until it got dusk and then got another fellow to help me.  We got him to hospital and snipers fired on us as we were crossing a field from a wood.  Shells dropped in front of us all the way.