Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

bullets, striking one of them without exploding it. After eight days in the trenches, he appreciated a spell at the back of the lines. Later he appeared in the casualty lists, though the wound, shrapnel across the face, was a relatively minor one and after an injection, he continued to serve in the trenches. In September, he was promoted to temporary Second Lieutenant and transferred from the Royal Fusiliers to the General List for duty with a trench mortar battery. By June 1917 he was acting Lieutenant and second-in-command. Hayes claims to have no recollection of an incident in July 1917 – like many who went through the experience of the First World War, maybe he chose deliberately to forget – but nevertheless, forwarded the letter to MUFTI , the battalion magazine: You will remember that dark, cold and infernally uncomfortable night of the 12th July 1917 when the good old 22nd were lying in shell holes adjacent to the East Miraumont Rock on the Ancre waiting to go over at the first flush of dawn: how we subsequently advanced in the early morning and how in the end we were all gloriously mixed up with the Royal Berks and the KRRs. I was rather badly wounded, having stopped an explosive bullet in the arm, shrapnel in the back and one through the foot. You came along the shallow bit of trench somewhere towards the front which was crowded with machine gunners etc. Half fainting with pain I hailed you as an officer of our battalion. You gave me a strong pull from your flask, which gave me sufficient strength to crawl many hundred yards to safety. I was unconscious for many days, but pulled through in the end. Fortunately the hospital people managed to save the arm, although it will always be paralysed. J.R.Skimmin, P.O.Box 488, Queque, Southern Rhodesia Hayes has added the following note: I received the letter printed below in August from one of my old comrades in the 22nd RFs and forwarded it to MUFTI , the present magazine of the late battalion for old members. I did not remember him, but he had seen my name in a paper sent to him in Rhodesia, and wrote asking about my welfare and any other old battalion friends. The Golden Age Ends on the Western Front 87