An optimistic view of the war is taken by a Rushden soldier who has been released from hospital for a month, after having his left hand blown off on the western front.

“Our artillery and big guns have unquestionably obtained a marked superiority over those of our enemies, and I think we have them well in hand,” said Pte. Arthur Clifton, 2nd Bedfords, son of Mr. and Mrs. S. Clifton, of 43 Victoria-road, Rushden, to a representative of the Rushden Echo this week. He added that he was of the opinion that the war would not last the year out, but when questioned by our representative regarding his personal experiences he did not seem particularly anxious to talk about them, and put himself immediately on his guard. However, by strategical questioning, our representative elicited the information that Pte. Clifton joined the 3rd Battalion on January 24th 1916, and as soon as his training had fitted him for the firing line he was drafted into the – Bedfords, and active service battalion, and went out to the front the last day in May, going up to the firing line almost straight away. About this time extensive preparations were being made for the big offensive in July, and the preparations themselves were surprising to the raw lads just going out.

Pte. Clifton’s regiment was sent along the Somme district, and it was about the middle of June that the great British bombardment began, and, in Pte. Clifton’s own words, “the din was terrible, tons and tons of stuff being sent over, and the German trenches being smashed to atoms; we Englishmen, standing on the parapets of our trenches, could discern the shells dropping in the German trenches, and we knew the damage must be awful.”

Pte. Clifton would say little about the actual advance in July, except that the thing which amused him most amid all the awful carnage and terrifying din of warfare was an incident in which an old and experienced British soldier, aged 45, stood up first on the parapet of the trench just as they were going over and coolly asking for a match, lit his pipe, and with a shout of, “Come on, boys,” he was over and into the fray. This put heart into the younger and less experienced soldiers round him, and they followed him without fear.

After the Somme engagement, Pte. Clifton found himself mixed up in the Trones Wood affair.

“Our regiment,” said Pte. Clifton, “took Trones Wood first and had to retire, and then the West Kents took it. They had to retire, too, but they got all the credit for the glorious fight that was put up, and which we commenced.”

It was at Trones Wood where Pte. Clifton received his injuries. A shrapnel shell blew his left hand off and a bullet went in at the middle of his back and came out at the front, the injury, luckily not being fatal. He was taken to hospital at the base and then brought to England, being first in hospital at Oxford, then a convalescent hospital in Berkshire, and afterwards at Brighton “limbless” hospital, and finally at Roehampton. He is now looking pretty well again, and says that if he ever gets back to the front he is going to look for his hand and have it put in a glass case!