Sergeant E.W. Turner, West Kents, writes to his
sweetheart: "The bullet that wounded me at Mons went into one breast
pocket and came out of the other, and in its course passed through your
photo." Private G. Ryder vouches for this: "We were having what you
might call a dainty afternoon tea in the trenches under shell fire. The
mugs were passed round with the biscuits and the 'bully' as best they
could by the mess orderlies, but it was hard work messing through
without getting more than we wanted. My next-door neighbor, so to speak,
got a shrapnel bullet in his tin, and another two doors off had his
biscuit shot out of his hand." Lieutenant A.C. Johnstone, the Hants
county cricketer, after escaping other bullets and shells which were
dancing around him, was hit over the heart by a spent bullet, which on
reaching hospital he found in his left-hand breast pocket. Private
Plant, Manchester Regiment, had a cigarette shot out of his mouth, and a
comrade got a bullet into his tin of bully beef. "It saves the trouble
of opening it," was his facetious remark.
One of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was saved by a cartridge clip. He felt
the shock and thought he had been hit, but the bullet was diverted by
the impact owing to a loose cartridge. Had it been struck higher up all
the cartridges might have exploded.
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