The bullet hit me!

It was night march to Amiens. It was a long, long march. Sleep in the day time and march at night. I don’t remember whether we went any by truck or not. I don’t think we did. It was all pretty well night march. So you was pretty well toughened up when you got there. The third day we hit the trenches that were being held previous. There had been a drive back, then on the third day, we took over. The Germans were holding the previously held line. And, as I say, you could see heads popping up as you advanced and you had to watch you didn’t put yourself too much in view. And this particular morning, I had a rifle and so did Jack Owens, and two heads came in front of us. I shot at one and Jack Owens shot at the other. Well, the one I shot at went down. Now whether I hit him or not, that’s another thing. I had a range of five hundred, and Jack says, “What range did you have? ” I says, “Five hundred.” And I’d no sooner said that then, bang! A bullet hit me a quarter of an inch above the heart. Went right through and came out my shoulder blade, took a notch out of my shoulder blade. Well, I was pretty close to Giles and Giles says, “I’m going to carry my runner off.” Major Giles. And he always used to speak of me as his runner. And when I got wounded, he says, “Where is my runner, I’m going to carry him off.” He took the end of the stretcher until he got me out of the area. We was right in action. What I mean to say, we was right where the thick of it was. That was the end of my activities on active duty.