At the end of it my participation in the battle of High Wood ended.
No, I wasn't wounded. But when we reached the Boche front trenches
a strange thing happened. There was no fight worth mentioning. The
tanks stopped over the trenches and blazed away right and left with
their all-around traverse.

A few Boches ran out and threw silly little bombs at the monsters.
The tanks, noses in air, moved slowly on. And then the Graybacks
swarmed up out of shelters and dug-outs, literally in hundreds, and
held up their hands, whining "Mercy, kamarad."

We took prisoners by platoons. Blofeld grabbed me and turned over a
gang of thirty to me. We searched them rapidly, cut their
suspenders and belts, and I started to the rear with them. They
seemed glad to go. So was I.

As we hurried back over the five hundred yards that had been No
Man's Land and was now British ground, I looked back and saw the
irresistible tanks smashing their way through the tree stumps of
High Wood, still spitting death and destruction in three
directions.

Going back we were under almost as heavy fire as we had been coming
up. When we were about half-way across, shrapnel burst directly
over our party and seven of the prisoners were killed and half a
dozen wounded. I myself was unscratched. I stuck my hand inside my
tunic and patted Dinky on the back, sent up a prayer for some more
luck like that, and carried on.