When the wave reached the first line in this drive, the trenches were filled with prisoners and orders were given to corral them in the different dugouts and rush them into the holes, but there was no need for hurrying them,—­they were diving for them as fast as their legs would carry them.  My brother Billy and a party was put in charge of a number of dugouts, Billy having one under his control.  He did not know how many were in the dugout he guarded, but outside was a captured Prussian officer.  The boys had now gone on ahead, leaving the prisoners’ escorts posted here and there along the trench to guard them.  This Prussian officer was standing a few feet away from Billy, on his right, and something diverting Bill’s attention from him, the Prussian officer, in strict accordance with the Prussian code of honor, seized the opportunity, grabbed a rifle, and was about to plunge the bayonet into Billy, but he turned just in time to catch him in the act and avoid him.  He lunged with his bayonet, catching the dastard in the left shoulder, and while tugging to get it out, the prisoners started rushing up the steps of the dugout, and Bill was forced to let go of the rifle; as he did so, the weight of the gun pulled the bayonet downward, ripping through the Prussian’s black heart.  Bill then took a bomb—­he had eight of them—­and let them go one after another into the dugout.  Although fighting for his life, he knew if he faltered for a moment he would be lost, and he did not lose his head for a second; he realized that if he let any of these bombs leave his hand and reach the dugout in sufficient length of time before it exploded, they would seize them and hurl them back at him, or else escape this particular bunch who were trying to get him and who were strung on the steps leading down into the dugout.  So, in the midst of the scrap he kept his nerve and his head, not letting a single bomb leave his hand until he was dead certain the time had expired and that the moment it struck the top step of the dugout, their mission of destruction would have been accomplished.  This done, he yanked his rifle out of the officer’s shoulder and jumped to the entrance of the pit for any others that might have escaped his fusillade of grenades.  None came.

“Billy, take those prisoners out of the dugout,” sang out the Sergeant-Major, “and get them to the rear, and tell the rest of the boys to do the same.”

“I don’t know how many are there, sir.”

“I’ll take a look and see,” and the Sergeant-Major jumped into the dugout.  In a moment he reappeared.  “There are nine killed and three wounded.  Round up these three and get them to the rear and get over the top as fast as you can.”

Billy did so, catching up with his pals at the third line trench.  When he got to the sixth line, a shell exploded in front of him, hitting him in the thigh and dislocating his hip bone, besides giving him a painful flesh wound.  He was knocked unconscious and thrown into a shell hole.  The hole was almost filled with water, but the horseshoe luck of the Grant family was with him; when he fell in his head was just out of the water.