大象传媒

So many houses were damaged, that only the cellars could be used as billets. Sections not required to man the forward trench positions, settled into these underground rooms as best they could. Wintry conditions made life very uncomfortable, and the rooms were always cold. One day, one of my men suggested that we should light a fire in the range of the damaged kitchen. It seemed a good idea, and there were plenty of wooden beams around. Soon, we had a fierce fire raging, which heated the room, and made things appear more cheerful.

After some time, one man asked if he could heat some food in the adjacent oven, which had been warming up from the welcoming blaze, around which we were all grouped. I saw no harm in this proposition, and told him to go ahead. He prepared his food and knelt down and opened the oven door.

It was his sudden exclamation that attracted attention, and caused me to look at him. His face had gone very white, and he seemed to be mesmerised by something in the oven.

Without murmuring a word, but pointing to the interior of the oven, he moved aside to let me see what had caused him such alarm. There, slowly cooking away was a fully primed British Mills Hand Grenade!

What damage would have been done by its explosion in the confined space around which we were huddled, one can only speculate. Certainly, few of us would have escaped serious injury.

Ordering the men to take cover outside the building and to leave the back door of the house open, I gently felt the serrated edges of the grenade. It was warm, but not yet hot. How long before it would have exploded and shattered the room? It was difficult to say. But for the chance desire of one soldier to heat some food, we would gaily have fed the fire to even greater heights, and been blissfully unaware of the deadly booby trap lurking close by.

With both hands, I gently withdrew the warm grenade from the oven, and slowly step by step made for the back door. No one was in sight - my instruction to the men to take cover had been obeyed, and they had disappeared. Walking some distance from the house, through what may have been a garden, I dropped to my knees - not to pray, but to gradually defuse the grenade. Slowly - it seemed an eternity - I unscrewed the base cap, and withdrew the detonator. The grenade was now safe. I buried the detonator as best I could.

I returned to the house, where my men were all back and accounted for. We were all slightly shaken. Infantry soldiers were always apprehensive about mines and booby traps - which seemed so unfair - and from which so many of our comrades had died, or been severely injured. As if anything was fair during a war.

At the time, I explained to my men, what I thought was the reason for a British grenade having been placed where it was. It was meant as a booby trap for German soldiers. They also would have made a fire to keep warm - and possibly suffered the consequences. We all knew that the village, which we now held on German soil, had been fiercely contested by both sides, and had changed hands several times.

So - we lived to fight another day!!

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