Men moaned in their sleep from pain or hunger. From time to time shots rang out as the enemy crept through the moonlit trees and our guards fired. I slipped down to the stream at the bottom of the bank. I filled cans with water and waited for a bullet to hit me. That bullet never arrived. But the waiting was terrible. The major decided to send the second pigeon at first light, before the enemy were awake. But as the sky turned a pale pigeon grey, a heavy shell landed at the edge of the camp, tore away tents and wounded more of the troop. I found Wolfie helping to bandage Crow’s leg where a splinter of shell had hit him. ‘The Germans are using the heavy guns on us now.’ Crow said, ‘That wasn’t a German shell. It came from the west. It was an American shell.’ ‘They’re firing at us?’ I gasped. ‘They’re firing at us because they don’t know we’re here. Get that pigeon away and tell them to stop,’ the man moaned. His uniform was in shreds too tattered for any scarecrow.
