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Title: The British Soldier
His Courage and Humour
Author: Edward J. Hardy
Release Date: June 21, 2023 [eBook #71010]
Language: English
Credits: Brian Coe, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRITISH SOLDIER ***
THE
BRITISH SOLDIER
His Courage and Humour
BY
Rev. E.J. HARDY, M.A.
Chaplain to the Forces (Retired)
Author of "How to be Happy though Married,"
"Mr. Thomas Atkins," etc. etc.
"Nous entendons dire de tous côtés que vos pauvres Tommies se battent
comme des lions et que chaque jour ils font des exploits magnifiques.
Ils sont bons garçons et tres drôles."--(_Extract from a French
lady's letter._)
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
1 ADELPHI TERRACE W.C.
_First published in 1915_
(_All rights reserved._)
TO
THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES
OR THEIR HEALTH
TO
SAVE CIVILISATION FROM BARBARISM
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE ix
I. UP TO SAMPLE 1
II. COURAGE 7
III. COURAGE AND DISCIPLINE 17
IV. BOYS OF THE BULLDOG BREED 29
V. FACING FEARFUL ODDS 37
VI. FIGHTS TO A FINISH 45
VII. CAVALRY CHARGES 52
VIII. GRIT AND GUNS 57
IX. GALLANTRY OF INDIVIDUALS 68
X. SELF PUT ASIDE 78
XI. BROTHERS-IN-ARMS 91
XII. UNDER FIRE 101
XIII. "I'VE GOT IT" 110
XIV. FROM FEAR TO HEROISM 117
XV. UNCOMMON COMBATS 123
XVI. IN THE TRENCHES 132
XVII. NOT DOWNHEARTED 142
XVIII. PLAY AND WORK 148
XIX. WAR AS A GAME 158
XX. THE COURAGE THAT BEARS 164
XXI. IN A MILITARY HOSPITAL 170
XXII. READY TO RETURN 176
XXIII. FASHIONS AT THE FRONT 182
XXIV. GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS 189
XXV. UNCONSCIOUS HUMORISTS 199
XXVI. NICKNAMES 209
XXVII. TENDER-HEARTED BECAUSE BRAVE 213
XXVIII. WHAT THE FRENCH AND BELGIANS THINK 228
PREFACE
I did not need a war of nations to learn about the courage and humour
of the British soldier. As a book I wrote called "Mr. Thomas Atkins"
shows, I had studied and appreciated him during the thirty-one years
in which I served as Chaplain to the Forces. Still, it was pleasant to
read despatches and letters from the seat of war highly praising my old
friend. This book is based upon the strong, clear letters of Mr. Thomas
Atkins (I am never guilty of the impertinence of calling him "Tommy")
which were written amidst the stress and strain of war, often even in
the pauses of battle. I have done little more than select and classify
the letters of that best of war correspondents--the British soldier.
The letters are a credit to his head and his heart, and throw a
searchlight on the war. The soldier wrote of the things he knew about,
and the result is that we can see his pen pictures.
I would like to express my indebtedness to the newspapers in which the
letters were printed, but find it difficult to do so as the letters
were all over the Press, so to speak, and many of them quoted without
mention of the paper from which they were taken. I know, however,
that _The Times_, _The Daily Mail_, _The Daily Telegraph_, _The Daily
Chronicle_, _The Evening News_, _The Star_, _The Standard_, _Reynolds'
Newsletter_, and _News of the World_ are amongst the papers from which
I have taken extracts.
What effect has war upon those engaged in it? A reflective soldier
thus answers: "If war brings out the brutal instincts, it reveals the
God-like also, for I have come across scores of instances of sacrifice
even unto death among men who in times of peace are looked upon as
almost worthless characters."
May we not trust that:
"Those who live on amid our homes to dwell
Have grasped the higher lessons that endure?"
In reference to Mr. Thomas Atkins, the British public is wont to blow
hot and cold. When he is engaged in a popular war they are inclined to
make a popular fool of him, talking as if it were rather wonderful, and
not a matter of course, that he should bear hardships uncomplainingly
and not skulk in battle. When peace comes there are in some places of
public resort as many snubs for him as before there had been sweets,
pairs of socks, and other "comforts."
The following lines were cut by a soldier in a stone sentry-box at
Gibraltar:
"God and the soldier all men adore
In time of trouble, and no more;
For when war is over,
And all things righted,
God is neglected;
And the old soldier slighted."
Let us hope that when this war is over God will not be neglected nor
the soldier slighted.
The Author's profits from this book will be given for the benefit of
soldiers.
CHAPTER I
Up to Sample
A manufacturer is glad when he can supply goods up to sample, and we
ought to be thankful that the old mixture of English, Scotch, Irish and
Welsh sent to the war against Germany was as good as it ever was.
Lord Roberts said, "Our men have done wonderfully at the front, and I
am proud of the British Army." Another old soldier, Lord Sydenham, told
an audience that British troops had never shown finer qualities.
"Ah, Monsieur," said a French Staff Officer to an English friend,
"without your Army we should have been lost. It proved that one
volunteer is worth ten conscripts."
In the retreat from the Belgian frontier it was the small British Army
that kept back at fearful loss the huge army of Germany, and by doing
so enabled the French forces to fall back in safety.
One who was associated with the British at the beginning of this
strategic retirement wrote: "I have seen a crack cavalry regiment
almost annihilated in a desperate charge against the German artillery.
I have seen the heroic Scots mown down. Yet the British have already
forgotten those tragic days when they alone bore the weight of the
German onslaught. When in my presence those British soldiers were told
of the disasters to their best regiments they never flinched. 'Never
mind. We'll have the best of it one day,' was the invariable answer
after a moment's silence."
Writing of the long resistance of our men against overwhelming odds in
the region of Ypres, Sir John French said in his dispatches, "No more
arduous task has ever been assigned to British soldiers, and in all
their splendid history there is no instance of their having answered so
magnificently to the desperate calls which of necessity were made upon
them."
The accuracy of British artillery and infantry shooting surprised
both our allies and the enemy. A French officer attached to one of
our contingents was astonished at the coolness and ingenuity of our
soldiers when under fire. He noted their good food and the celerity
with which they made tea, cooked, washed and shaved when the enemy's
fire slackened. He said that our aviators had mastered the technique of
the new arm.
General Zurlinden wrote thus in _The Gaulois_: "The British Army,
which grows from day to day, has done miracles under Field-Marshal
French. It shows in all engagements its incontestable superiority over
the German infantry and artillery; as well as over the German cavalry."
There is a large body of German prisoners in the old fortress of Blaye,
on the Gironde, and the French doctor told a friend that the first
set of prisoners hastened to inform later arrivals that the English
were fighting with the French against Germany. "This, however," they
added, "is of no consequence whatever. The English soldiers are not
worth taking into account." By-and-by other prisoners arrived, and
the same story was repeated to them. They immediately protested. "You
make a grievous mistake," they said, "if you believe that. The English
soldiers are terrible fellows."
The following is a translation of a letter that was found on a dead
German officer: "The English soldier is the best trained soldier in
the world. The English soldier's fire is ten thousand times worse than
hell. If we could only beat the English it would be well for us, but I
am afraid we shall never be able to beat these English devils. They are
very brave and fight to the last."
Even the Kaiser has found out that French's "Contemptible little Army"
is like what the nervous lady said of a mouse-- "small, but a horrible
nuisance."
The deeds of daring that were done in former British wars were repeated
over and over in the present one. There were cavalry charges which can
compare with that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, only that nobody
blundered. Almost every day a small number of our men kept multitudes
of Germans at bay and got out of the tight corner at last. Guns were
saved or taken with up-to-sample bravery. Wounded men were rescued by
self-forgetting comrades who were often themselves wounded.
Here is an extract from a sergeant's letter printed in _The Evening
News_: "When on the Monday morning we were compelled, reluctantly, to
retire it was just as though we stood on parade at Woolwich. The line
was as straight and steady as ever it was. I could not help thinking
that here was an answer to the blatant ranters who are for ever prating
about the degeneracy of our race."
Nor were our men afraid of the greater amount of work which up-to-date
war entails. An officer mentioned having had during five days of a
retreat, two hours of sleep and nineteen to twenty hours marching a
day. "It was awful to see men with bad feet fall by the roadside; but
I am glad our troops are still the British soldier of history, taking
everything that comes in a most philosophical and courageous manner.
Lying in rain-soaked trenches for three days under a murderous and
hellish fire, wet, hungry, merely provokes him to song and laughter."
A corporal of the 16th Lancers wrote: "We are in the saddle from 3
a.m. and 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.; then off again at three next
morning--not exactly playing billiards at the club."
A sergeant-major was so worn out with marching that at the battle of Le
Cateau he fell asleep and did not awake until his regiment, which had
been in reserve, was ordered to engage. Some men with rifles still hot
in their hands and their heads resting on the barrels slept "the brave
sleep of wearied men."
In a letter from the front there was this passage: "Our fellows have
signed the pledge because Kitchener wants them to. But they all
say, 'God help the Germans, when we get hold of them, for making us
teetotal.' You can get plenty of beer, but I would not disgrace myself
with that, especially on active service."
The French expected our soldiers to be fond of drink, but they found
that they preferred tea to the free drinks of wine they offered.
The girls and women hung on the arms of the British and said that
their only hope was in them. The children played with them and the
old people were cheered up by their songs and laughter as they marched
through the villages. Mr. Thomas Atkins was as brave in resisting the
temptations of this popularity as he was when he came, as he soon did,
to his first battles.
The brave are always tender-hearted, and our soldiers were as humane
and considerate to those whom they conquered as they were strong and
courageous in conquering. After the battle the men with whom they had
been fighting were no longer enemies. They were, if wounded, poor
fellows to be pitied and helped.
And our men were generous in their appreciation. One man wrote: "In
spite of all we say about the Teuton he is taking his punishment well,
and we've got a big job on our hands. Getting to Berlin isn't going to
be a cheap excursion."
CHAPTER II
Courage
What is courage or fortitude? There are many kinds of it, but Locke's
definition covers most cases. "It is the quiet possession of a man's
self, and an undisturbed doing of his duty, whatever evil beset him, or
danger lie in his way."
There are those who have courage to fight, but not to wait. Where
duty says, "Go forward," to halt or to go in any other direction is
cowardice; where duty says, "Stand still," to go forward is cowardice.
Our soldiers have shown themselves capable of both kinds of courage.
At the battle of Mons they were brave enough to retreat when ordered,
though they were driving the Germans before them at the point of the
bayonet. They said that they could not understand why the order to
retreat was given, but they trusted their leaders.
"Tommy Atkins, you're a fighter.
An' your work is clean and sweet--
When you've got a job before you,
Why you goes an' does it neat;
Tommy Atkins, you're a hero,
With your 'masterly retreat!'
"Tommy Atkins, you're a Saxon,
An' you're bloomin' hard to beat,
And you've borne the brunt o' fightin'
And you've kept upon your feet--
An' you've learned the precious lesson
Of a 'masterly retreat!'
"Tommy Atkins, you're a soldier,
An' your work is clean and sweet,
An' you've won a dozen battles
By a nicely-timed defeat--
Tommy Atkins, you're a hero,
With your 'masterly retreat'!"
"Ah," said a French officer, "we lose so heavily, we French. We haven't
the patience of the English. They are fine and can wait: we must rush."
But indeed the very constancy of the courage of our soldiers may
sometimes hide it. We take it for granted. We become so accustomed to
read of the coolness of Mr. Thomas Atkins amidst a hail of bullets,
that we begin to fancy that with a good umbrella we would be equally
indifferent to the shower. Is courage then natural, and are all men
brave? Quite the contrary. What is natural is an instinctive desire to
save life and limb, and those who overcome this from a sense of duty
ought to get credit for doing so.
How courage creates courage is told by a Connaught Ranger. Writing of
a man who had carried him away through a storm of bullets when wounded
he said, "He is a grand lad and afraid of nothing. He gave all who were
near him courage by his brave conduct."
There are many kinds and degrees of courage. There is that which is
calm, deliberate and with little or no hope of reward.
A magnificent manifestation of this courage was given by twelve Royal
Engineers. A bridge on the British line of retreat had to be destroyed.
A party of sappers laid a charge; but before they could light the fuse
they were killed. Then one of the Engineers made a rush, alone, towards
the fuse. He was killed before he had got half-way, but immediately
he was down another man dashed up and ran on until he, too, fell
dead, almost over the body of his comrade. A third, a fourth, a fifth
attempted to run the gauntlet of the German rifle fire, and all of them
met their deaths in the same way. Others dashed out after them, one by
one, until the death toll numbered eleven. Then, for an instant, the
German rifle fire slackened, and in that instant the bridge was blown
up, for the twelfth man, racing across the space where the dead bodies
of his comrades lay, lit the fuse and sent the bridge up with a roar as
a German rifleman brought him down dead.
A few British soldiers held at bay a large number of Germans who were
trying to rush a bridge. A Sergeant of the Royal Engineers perceived
that if they did this our men would be cut off. He destroyed the bridge
with dynamite, the British troops were saved, but a shell took off the
Sergeant's head.
With the modesty of a real hero Lance-Corporal Jarvis, R.E., said to a
newspaper reporter: "Yes, I am proud to have gained the Cross, but all
the fellows at the front deserve it." Jarvis got the Victoria Cross
for gallantry shown at Genappes on August 23rd in working for one
and a half hours under heavy fire, in full view of the enemy, and in
successfully firing charges for the demolition of a bridge. "The work
on the bridge was done under fire from three sides. Near the bridge I
found Captain Theodore Wright, V.C., wounded in the head. I wished to
bandage him, but he said, 'Go back to the bridge; it must be done'--and
so I went. The British infantry were posted behind barricades, and
I had to make quite a detour to get round where I had to start
operations."
"Good-bye, you fellows." Thirty gunners of a British field battery had
just been killed and wounded. Thirty others had been ordered to take
their places. Knowing they were going to their death, this was the last
greeting to their comrades in the reserve line. Two minutes afterwards
every man had been put out of action, and another thirty went to the
front, with the same farewell greeting, smoking cigarettes as they went
to almost certain death.
A pathetic picture was presented when a British Red Cross shelter was
being shelled, and the less wounded men carried the more wounded to a
place of comparative safety.
Some almost mad things were done by men in the trenches, in the
intervals of coolly playing games.
A man stole forth on a dark night to carry off a German maxim. He
wriggled on his stomach to within a few yards of his object. He
surprised the guard of five Prussians, slew them, and returned in
triumph to his trench with the maxim slung like a sheep across his
shoulders. Rendered brazen by his success he sallied forth again to
collect the ammunition and belt which he had left behind on his first
journey.
One day the Gloucesters were lying under shell fire, and a shell
dropped right in the middle of a party having some food. It did not
explode at once, so one of the men dropped his biscuit, got up and
threw the shell out of the trenches.
A sergeant of the Royal Horse Artillery who had come back from the
war for a rest, was asked if there were many men getting the Victoria
Cross. He replied: "Of course there are, but every fellow who has
fought has in some way or other earned it. Why, our little trumpeter,
had he been saving a wounded man under the same conditions as he
collared a chicken for his comrades' dinner, would have certainly
obtained the coveted Cross. We were being shelled and fired on fiercely
when a chicken suddenly ran into a very inferno of fire. 'There goes
our dinner!' cried the trumpeter, and without another word he chased
the bird for at least five minutes, never worrying a little bit about
the shells and bullets. Finally he came back with a bullet in his leg,
but as proud as the Kaiser himself, with the chicken in his arms."
Compare with this the following, written by Sergeant George Freshwater,
of the Highland Light Infantry: "The other day one of our fellows shot
a pig that came wandering towards our trench. The difficulty was,
however, to get him. The pig lay about 30 yards from us, and was right
in the line of the German fire. Some of the Germans also shot at him,
but it was our chaps who killed him. We drew lots who would go out and
fetch the 'bacon' in. The chap who was stuck for the job went out at
once, though some of us wanted him to wait until it got dark, but he
wouldn't. He got the pig in safely, though he got two shots through
his sleeve and one through his cap. The pig got six shots in him. We
skinned and roasted the pig in the trench that night, and had a real
good breakfast off him the next morning."
A man crept up to a German trench and took away from a sleeping warrior
a helmet, knapsack, a pair of patent-leather boots (evidently looted),
and forty-five rounds of ammunition.
A soldier wrote: "There was a big, awkward, gawky lad of the Camerons
who took a fancy to a Scotch collie that had followed us about a lot,
and one day the dog got left behind when we were falling back. The
big lad was terribly upset and went back to look for it. He found it,
and was trudging along with it in his arms, making forced marches to
overtake us, when he fell in with a party of Uhlans on the prowl. He
and his dog fought their best, but they hadn't a dog's chance between
them, and both were killed."
"A man of the 'Glosters' noticed a horse that had been struck with a
shell and was in great pain, and was neighing piteously for water.
There was none about, and with the Germans rapidly closing in it was
as much as any man's life was worth to stay another minute. The brave
chap knew that as well as anyone, but he wanted to make the poor animal
comfortable before he cleared off, so he hunted around until he found
water. We had to clear out, and didn't know what had happened to him
until next day when we retook the position, and found the Gloucester
lad and horse both dead."
The highest courage comes from forgetting self and caring for the
welfare of others.
This was told by a corporal of an Irish regiment. "We were in a place
near Rheims and a Britisher dashed out from a farmhouse on the right
and ran towards us. The Germans fired and he fell dead. We learned that
he had been captured the previous day by a party of German cavalry, and
had been held a prisoner at the farm, where the Germans were in ambush
for us. He saw their game, and, though he knew that if he made the
slightest sound they would kill him, he decided to make a dash to warn
us of what was in store."
It was not enough for our men to show courage on land and sea; they
now do so also in the air. At one time it was thought that the Germans
excelled in this new kind of warfare, and that their Kaiser was "the
Prince of the power of the air." Now the French and British have
successfully disputed this ascendancy.
The men of the Royal Flying Corps are not "afraid of that which is
high." "Fired at constantly both by friend and foe," Sir John French
writes, "and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have
remained undaunted throughout."
John Baker, Royal Flying Corps, told the following in a letter home:
"While flying over Boulogne at a height of 3,000 feet something went
wrong with the machine, and the engine stopped. The officer said,
'Baker, our time has come. Be brave, and die like a man. Good-bye,' and
shook hands with me. The next I remembered was that I was in a barn."
Another new opportunity for courage is given by the work of the
motor-cycle despatch-rider. There is in it adventure, danger, hardship
and every other element of romance. The despatch-rider has to take his
machine over rough fields and roads made dangerous by shell holes. He
has often experiences as bad as the one which Lance-Corporal Davies,
of the Welsh Fusiliers, thus describes: "I had to accompany one of the
sergeants in carrying a despatch across the battlefield under fire.
We had not gone far before the sergeant was shot dead. I took the
despatch from his keeping with all haste and made at top speed for the
staff officers for whom it was intended. As I delivered the despatch
I dropped into a dead faint from exhaustion, and when I came round I
found myself in the field hospital."
The despatch-rider has to pass sentries who shoot at sight, and
sometimes he has to go through even the lines of the enemy.
CHAPTER III
Courage and Discipline
Before the last Boer War British Army officers did not take their
profession as seriously as did Continental military men. A regiment was
a club and many came into it merely to have a good time.
After the lessons of the Boer War all this changed. Zeal and energy
took hold of our officers and they began to think that they were bound
in honour to make themselves efficient. And they have done so.
The rank and file know this, and respect them for it. One soldier ended
a letter with these words: "We are officered by excellent men, and we
feel that we are being led. Their coolness when in a tight corner had a
great effect upon the men and pulled us through often." In one of his
letters at the beginning of the war a sergeant of the Buffs remarked,
"It is wonderful, with all they have to do, how helpful and kind the
officers are. They know their work to their finger tips. If some of you
at home who have spoken sneeringly of British officers could have seen
how they handled their men and shirked nothing you would be ashamed of
yourselves."
The other day Lord Raglan, Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man,
related an incident which shows what a soldier will do for his officer.
He said that his son, who is a lieutenant in the Welsh Regiment, was
seriously wounded in Belgium, and that a private soldier first bound up
the wound, and then said, "They shall not hit you again, sir." He then
lay down in front of his wounded officer so that his own body would
protect him from the fire of the enemy.
An officer of the Manchester Regiment was equally self-sacrificing for
a soldier. Lieutenant W.G. Mansergh was hit in the leg at Le Cateau.
Falling near an empty trench he crawled into it and was comparatively
safe. Shortly after a soldier of the same regiment crawled up to the
same trench. Mansergh pulled him in and got the man underneath him (it
was a short "two-man trench" for kneeling). Mansergh was now exposed to
shrapnel, though still protected by the trench parapet from rifle fire.
A shell burst just in front of the trench low down. Mansergh was killed
on the spot.
An officer wrote, "You cannot imagine how one gets to love these
soldier chaps. The other day they found an egg which they wanted me
to have. Of course I wouldn't, but offered to cut for it (we have
got a pack of cards). In the end it was given to a woman we met. They
are just like children in the way they look up to one and ask one for
advice and counsel on all kinds of subjects, great or small. Although
I say it myself, I don't think they could put more confidence in their
officers than they do at times like these, and I think most of us
appreciate the fact."
Private Walker, of the 1st Cameronians, wrote in a letter to his
mother: "I asked an officer for some tobacco, and he gave me some of
what he had been smoking, laughingly remarking, 'It's Cavendish.' It
was just leaves pulled off the trees, so hard up were we for tobacco."
What a contrast there is between the discipline of the German and
the British Army! In the former officers and men are almost in the
same relation to each other as warders and convicts. The officers
drive their men and do not lead them, and dumb, driven cattle cannot
be heroes in the strife. German officers think of their men only as
"cannon fodder," ours associate with them in games during peace time,
and in war share all their hardships. It was this "moral persuasion"
discipline that so often enabled our small army to knock the
tail-feathers out of the Kaiser's eagle.
A corporal of the 1st Cameronians wrote: "Thank Heaven our officers are
not like German officers. Ours are the best in the world. 'Come on,
lads!' is the way they cheer us, and the boys know how to obey."
This war has shown that there never was in our Army more of that best
kind of discipline which comes from officers and men being in friendly
touch with each other. A man who was lying in a place where shells were
exploding, said to his officer, "Sir, may I retire, I have been hit
three times?"
The following are some of the testimonies which men returned from the
war gave as to the good feeling that exists between our officers and
their men.
This is from a corporal's letter: "Our officers are grand and they
cheer our men by their laughter and jokes in the trenches. They are
gluttons for work, and are always cheerful, cool, and quick to see and
seize any chance of delivering a punishing blow at any part of the
enemy's lines. The only complaint against them is that they will not
take cover, but expose themselves too much. The Boer War lesson they
teach to the men, but won't profit by it themselves."
Describing the fighting at Mons, a sergeant of the Royal Berkshire
Regiment said: "Captain Shott, D.S.O., of our regiment, was, I think,
the bravest man I ever met. On August 23rd, when we were near ----
and were lying in our trenches with shell fire constantly around us,
he walked out into the open and, with his cheery words, gave us good
heart. He was puffing a cigarette and he said, 'Lads, we will smoke.'
He was an officer and a gentleman in every sense of the word, and when
he was killed two days later it was a great blow to us."
"Captain Berners, of the Irish Guards," wrote one of his men, "was the
life and soul of our lot. When shells were bursting over our heads, he
would buck us up with his humour about Brock's displays at the Palace.
But when we got into close quarters, it was he who was in the thick of
it, and didn't he fight! I don't know how he got knocked over, but one
of our fellows told me he died a game 'un.' There is not a Tommy who
would not have gone under for him."
We read of an officer of the 1st Hampshire Regiment reading "Marmion"
aloud in the trenches, under a fierce fire, to keep up the spirits of
his men. "He is as cool as a slab of salmon in a fishmonger's shop. He
is a top-hole chap and worshipped by his men."
Writing of the terrible fire of the German artillery at the Marne, a
soldier said: "All we could do was to keep on firing. Our officer stood
up in the trenches and clapped his hands like as if he was clappin' a
star turn at the Empire. 'Good boys!' he yelled. 'Good boys, stick to
it!' That was all he said. The next moment a piece of shell crumpled
him up. His death was a terrible blow to us. He did not know what fear
is, and shared everything from a biscuit to a cigarette with his men."
So, too, a guardsman wrote: "There is not a man in the whole Brigade of
Guards but what would readily admit that all the hardships the men have
endured have been shared by the officers."
I read the following from a corporal's letter in _The Daily Chronicle_:
"Our Major (Mathieson) was a hero. When we were hard pressed and they
charged our weak line, we were almost on the point of retiring, but he
stood up in the midst of the fire and shouted, 'Never let it be said
that a Cold-streamer retired in front of a German dog.' After that we
were all as one man and never flinched."
A subaltern was heard to say in his sleep, "This position must be held
at any cost." This showed his zeal and the tension of his overworked
nerves.
A battalion, full strength, went into the trenches. They stayed there
day after day without relief, resisting overwhelming forces which were
trying to drive them out. At last the time for relief came. They came
out of the trenches, but only a fourth of those who had gone into them,
and they came out under the command of one who had become their senior
officer, a boy of nineteen. When they came out he formed up his men. He
gave them the order to march, and then he burst into tears, and fell
fainting to the ground. While duty required it he had done all that was
wanted of him, but when it was over the strain was too much, and he
broke down.
An officer said to his men, "Surely British soldiers can keep back any
amount of German waiters." The men said that they were "bucked up" by
this way of putting it.
In a letter to his wife, Private McKay, of the 2nd Highland Light
Infantry, wrote: "The Highland Light Infantry, the Oxford and Bucks
Light Infantry, the Worcester Regiment, and the Connaught Rangers have
beaten all records for marching by doing 190 miles in eight and a half
days, and at the same time fighting rearguard actions day after day.
When on the march the men have been so run down that they feel like
falling down, but our officers help them on with a few words, such as
'Come on, men! Think of the honour of the regiment.' That does it. They
all start singing, 'Hold your hand out, naughty boy!' and feel fit for
another 10 or 15 miles."
Another soldier wrote to his parents: "I have often told you what a
fine fellow our captain was. He got knocked over with a piece of shell;
but kneeling on one knee, he was cheerful, and kept saying, 'My bonnie
boys, make sure of your man.' When he was taken away in the ambulance
he shouted, 'Keep cool and mark your man.' To his men he was always a
gentleman."
Bandsman Imeson, 4th Middlesex Regiment, wrote this about his officer,
Lieutenant Williams: "He was a hero. When in the trenches he would
expose himself to danger so as to take good aim with his rifle,
although we frequently requested him to get under cover. His answer
was, 'Look at the bounders, men; don't waste a shot; take careful aim,
so that each shot tells.' It was while he was taking aim that he was
shot through the stomach, and later died. His last words were, 'Men,
give it them.'"
Another soldier in a letter said that he nearly cried when he saw his
captain shot. "He has been so good to us."
Big strapping troopers of the Horse Guards are said to have "cried like
kids" when their Major fell in action. "If you knew how much we loved
that man you would understand."
A soldier thus wrote, who had been asked to tell General A. Wynn about
his son's death at Landrecies:
"Sir, these are a few of the instances which made your son liked by
all his men. The last day he was alive we had got a cup of tea in the
trenches, and we asked him to have a drink. He said, 'No. Drink it
yourselves; you are in want of it.' And then with a smile, he added,
'We have to hold the trenches to-day.' Again, at Mons, we had been
fighting all day, and someone brought a sack of pears and two loaves of
bread. Lieutenant Wynn accepted only one pear and a very little bread.
We noticed this. I had a small bottle of pickles in my haversack and
asked him to have some. But it was the usual answer: 'You require them
yourselves.' Our regiment was holding the first line of trenches, and
Lieutenant Wynn was told to hold the right of the company. Word was
passed down to see if Lieutenant Wynn was all right, and I was just
putting up my head when they hit me, and I heard from a neighbour that
Lieutenant Wynn was hit through the eye and died instantly. He died
doing his duty, and like the officer and gentleman he was."
Officers and men were always on the watch to help each other. At the
battle of Mons an officer stood over the body of a private who had
previously saved his life until he had fired his last shot from his
revolver, and then fell seriously wounded. A private soldier carried
on his back for 800 yards a young subaltern, who afterwards died in
hospital.
Trooper O'Brien, of the 3rd Dragoons, told in a letter to his wife how
Captain Wright, of his squadron, crept out under a heavy artillery and
rifle fire to try and bring in two wounded men. "He brought one back
to the trench and bandaged up and placed in safety the other. He is a
lovely man, and I and every other man in my squadron would follow him
anywhere to the death."
A private wrote: "Officers seem to be mainly concerned about the safety
of their men, and indifferent to the risks they take upon themselves.
Lieutenant Amos rescued a wounded man under heavy fire. Several of us
volunteered to do it, but the lieutenant would not hear of anybody else
taking the risk."
Private R. Toomey, Royal Army Medical Corps, told of an officer of the
Royal Irish shouting at the top of his voice, "Give them hell, boys,
give them hell!" He had been wounded in the back by a lump of shrapnel,
but, said Toomey, "It was a treat to hear him shouting."
Because of a foolish affair in Ulster, Ireland, our Army not so long
ago was said to be insubordinate. What answer has the war given to
this? It has shown that officers and men never worked better together,
and that the educated, temperate soldier of the present fights just as
well as did his predecessor, whose mind was too uncultivated to realise
danger, and who was not unfrequently blinded to it by drink.
How well the officers managed their men when they were sore and
disappointed at the order to retreat after the battle of Mons! A
General told the South Staffordshire Regiment that they were doing
splendidly, but that they must retreat or they would be surrounded.
They were all so unwilling to yield ground that one of them, expressing
impatience, made a comment he would never have thought of doing in
peace time. The General only smiled.
At St. Quentin Sir John French, "smiling all over his face," explained
to the troops the meaning of the repeated retirements. Up to this the
men had almost to be pulled back by their officers, but after the
explanation they fell in cheerfully with that most hated thing--a
strategic movement to the rear.
The men were pleased by Sir John and his staff going among them to see
their life in the trenches, and whether they were being properly looked
after. "He has no 'side,' and is just as ready to smile on the ordinary
private as on the highest officer. He stops when he has time to have a
chat for the sake of finding out what we think of it all, and whether
we are properly looked after."
The spirit which animates our officers, and the men through them, is
shown by words written by Captain Norman Leslie a short time before
he was killed: "Try and not worry too much about the war units.
Individuals cannot count. Remember we are writing a new page of
history. Future generations cannot be allowed to read of the decline
of the British Empire and attribute it to us. We live our little lives
and die, and to some are given the choice of proving themselves men,
and to others no chance comes. Whatever our individual faults, virtues,
or qualities may be, it matters not; but when we are up against big
things let us forget individuals and let us act as one great British
unit, united and fearless. Some will live and many will die, but count
not the loss. It is better far to go out with honour than survive with
shame."
CHAPTER IV
Boys of the Bulldog Breed
A bugler only sixteen years of age was, on returning from the war,
being taken to the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. One of the
soldiers said to the people who were looking on, "He is a little hero,
and deserves a dozen medals. He did not leave off sounding his bugle
until his left arm was blown off with a shell and he had four bullet
wounds in him."
Another boy of the bulldog breed, who is a trumpeter, did this
heroic deed. A British battery had lost all its horses and all its
men except a lieutenant and a trumpeter. By one of the guns lay the
sergeant-major, wounded in the leg and shoulder, and the lad decided
that he would make an attempt to take him out of the line of fire. His
officer tried to dissuade him, declaring that it was sheer madness, in
face of the awful shell fire that was pouring like rain all round that
spot. The lad, however, was determined, and, getting hold of a spare
horse from the rear, galloped off to where the wounded sergeant-major
lay, picked him up, placed him across his saddle, and brought him
safely to the hospital.
The great complaint our cavalry had against that of the enemy was that
they would not stand and have a respectable charge against them.
A party of Royal Marines were going by train from Antwerp to Ostend.
At 10 o'clock at night the train was stopped and the Marines were
fired at by Germans from all directions. The officer in command was
asked to surrender. He replied, "Royal Marines never surrender." The
no-surrender boys fought their way through, though they lost many of
their number.
Great was the pain that an order to retreat gave to other boys of
the bulldog breed. While the British were gaining a series of great
successes, the French were being defeated on the right. They were
unable to hold the Germans. The British were ordered to fall back in
order that they might not be enveloped by the Germans and completely
cut off. When the order came, the men became almost rebellious.
"Stalwart members of the Scottish and Irish regiments wept."
The men, however, as it proved, got even more opportunity of showing
courage in the retreat that they did not, at the time, understand. "My
story," says the _New York World_ correspondent, "principally concerns
the bulldog-like resistance of the British troops against the constant
ferocious attacks by the Germans holding the centre of the far-flung
line, while the French troops were engaged in pushing back the right
flank of the Germans. Official statements conveyed but an incomplete
idea of the tremendous undertaking of the British and French troops."
"If there be truth behind the splendid boast
That freedom makes of every man a host
And multiplies his courage and his might
Above the strength of peoples without right
To liberty; now is the hour to show
The universe how Britain meets the foe."
The following incidents have been mentioned in despatches: During
the action at Le Cateau on August 26th the whole of the officers and
men of one of the British batteries had been killed or wounded, with
the exception of one subaltern and two gunners. These continued to
serve one gun, kept up a sound rate of fire, and came unhurt from the
battlefield.
On another occasion a portion of a supply column was cut off by a
detachment of German cavalry, and the officer in charge was summoned to
surrender. He refused, and starting his motors off at full speed dashed
safely through, losing only two lorries.
It is no wonder that a French officer said that British soldiers were
always "le bulldog. We did not know that they could fight as they do,
nor did the Germans. You cannot wear out their spirits: even if you
walk them off their legs they will crawl somehow, they will never stop."
Writing about his soldiers after the battle of the Aisne, a British
officer used these words: "There is an extraordinary English atmosphere
over the whole show. I mean that the men display a dogged, obstinate
resistance in the face of any odds and absolutely refuse to consider
the possibility of their being beaten. They won't admit at any time
that the Germans have got the best of them. Their cheerfulness is
extraordinary and nothing is able to depress them."
The following account of part of the same battle illustrates the above
remark: "The Engineers built a pontoon bridge across the river. They
were under shell fire all the time, but they stuck to the work gamely.
Luckily the shells dropped in the river, and did not explode. The order
was given to cross the bridge man by man, six yards between each man.
It was a race across under fire. I saw men getting ready for their
turn, as if it were a hundred yards sprint and the officer giving the
word to the next man: 'Go.' It was an exciting time, and lots of men
fell in the river and were drowned. I ran the race of my life, but I
got over safely. We advanced up a side of a hill, as the river was
down a valley, and when we got on top it was all open country, and
the Germans held a position on the hills in front of us, and their
infantry had trenches just below them. Their shells started to drop on
us. We advanced a bit. We were getting slaughtered. We lay down flat
on our stomachs. They were well in the trenches, and we could see they
meant to make a stand. We lay there helpless against their artillery.
The shells ceased a while, and their infantry tried to rush us, but as
soon as they left their trenches our rifle fire played hell with them.
They were trying to rush us, but we drove them back time after time. My
rifle I could hardly hold, as it was red-hot with the continual firing.
It was raining all the time, and we were lying in water. I had to keep
dropping my rifle and wet my hands on the ground. We could not move
an inch. The shells started again. It was like waiting to be killed.
It was miserable lying in wet. We lay there for four days, getting
biscuits and bully beef at night, when the supplies used to creep up to
us at the risk of their lives."
Another instance of bulldog resistance was thus recorded: "At one place
we had a surprise attack. We were just getting ready for some food,
when all of a sudden shells started bursting around us. I can tell you,
it was a case of being up and doing. Dixies and tea-cans were flung one
side, our tea spilt, fires put out, and the order given to stand to our
guns and horses; everyone to prepare for action. Still, we were not to
be caught napping. Our boys only close one eye when we get a chance
of a sleep, so you can tell we were wide awake to the fact that it was
a case of do or die. Our gallant boys, the Guards, held them at bay
until our death-dealing pea-shooters put them to flight; nevertheless,
the Germans made a strong resistance during the night, and it was only
after a hard struggle that we managed to be victorious."
How the Coldstream Guards saved a division of British troops is told by
one of them: "The Germans were in tremendous numbers, easily sufficient
to swamp us. We had chosen the position very carefully, and our flanks
were protected by barbed-wire defences. The enemy suffered fearful
losses along that narrow strip of road, but they never relaxed their
efforts to take the place by storm. So fierce was the fighting that
the Germans did manage once to capture one of our machine guns, but
they did not keep it long--we soon had it back. Rush after rush came
during the night, but our lads held fast. The German big guns were very
troublesome. One of them was a particular danger, and the order came to
one of the machine gunners to try to scrap it. 'Yes, sir, what range?'
'Four hundred yards,' came the reply. The gunner adapted his machine,
and let drive. One shot was sufficient. It got the German gun right
in the breech, and it did not bark again that night. The engagement
proceeded all night. A huge German force was held up by a comparative
handful of British soldiers, while the latter's main body was able to
extricate itself from a most precarious position."
A soldier of the 1st Queen's described this case of bulldog resistance:
"On September 17th we were supporting the Northamptons, who were hotly
engaged with the enemy. The Germans threw up their hands, and the
Northants ceased to press home the attack. As they approached, however,
instead of surrendering, the Germans opened a withering fire, and the
Northants were compelled to retire. Their danger was recognised by
Colonel Warren, whose machine-gun section was disabled. He himself
served a gun, assisted by his adjutant, and helped to pour in a heavy
fire on the Germans, who suffered severely. Both officers paid for
their gallantry with their lives. A shrapnel shell from a German gun
burst over them, their gun was shattered, and Colonel Warren and
Captain Wilson were instantaneously killed."
A soldier related how when unable to sleep one night with the cold of
the trenches the regiment wished for some warming work and got it. "We
were called out to support an infantry brigade. During the action at
one point the line broke, and our lads fell back in some confusion.
Reserves were pressed forward to feed the fighting line, and the
advance began again. Once more the Germans were too heavy for our
chaps, and again they were forced back. They halted for a little to
take a rest and then began again. They dashed up the slope like wild
cats and closed with the Germans, who were by this time getting tired
of it. There was no falling back this time, and though it was very hard
work indeed, the whole line of trenches was cleared and the Germans
sent flying. I tell you that it is so terrible in the trenches at
times, that we mutter through our chattering teeth prayers to Almighty
God only to give the Germans sufficient grace to make them come out and
attack us, just to warm us up and give us the exercise our aching limbs
are crying out for."
After relating how his regiment at one place held its ground to the
last, a soldier proudly added: "General French has thanked us for the
way we behaved, and praise from him is worth a great deal more than
from other men. He is not in a hurry to say nice things about us, but
when he does speak we know he means every word of it, and maybe more.
That's the way to get round the soldiers."
CHAPTER V
Facing Fearful Odds
This is how some twenty-six British soldiers faced 3,500 Germans after
the evacuation of Mons. The British forces reluctantly retreated.
As they were only giving ground step by step, twenty-six Fusiliers
entrenched themselves in a farm overlooking a long, straight road.
They were in possession of several machine guns and these they placed
inside the doors of the farm house. "Now, boys," shouted one of the
twenty-six, "we are going to cinematograph the grey devils when they
come along. This is going to be Coronation Day. Let each of us take as
many pictures as possible." As soon as the Germans appeared on the road
and started attacking a canal bridge the Fusiliers very coolly turned
the handle of their guns.
The picture witnessed from the farm on the "living screen" by the canal
bridge was one that will not easily be forgotten. The "grey devils"
dropped down in hundreds. Again and again they came on only to get more
machine murder. At length they thought that it was wiser to continue
their march and leave alone the twenty-six who had for a considerable
time delayed it.
A well-known Member of Parliament, when visiting a locality in France
where there had been much fighting, came to a lonely wood. Around a
large tree were significant mounds enclosed by a palisade on which were
hanging laurel wreaths. On a part of the tree from which the bark had
been stripped was a rude inscription: "Here lie the bodies of twenty
English heroes." This was a German tribute to our countrymen, who had
fought to the last against overwhelming odds. The enemy admiring their
bravery, had buried them and left this record. A company of French
soldiers passing through the wood later on saw it. They stayed to erect
the palisade to guard the graves, and upon it they hung twenty laurel
wreaths.
One of the Lancashire Fusiliers when left behind at Mons continued to
fire until his last cartridge was gone. His bayonet was also gone, so
he stood up with folded arms until he was shot down.
Here is how the brigade to which the Welsh regiment belonged faced
fearful odds.
"'The contemptible little Army' were opposed by 300,000 Germans. Our
brigade got a position that, had the enemy made a dash at us, we should
have been overwhelmed. Had they had the pluck they could have come
over a ridge and mowed us down, for we were all in a valley, but our
General knew we were safe from any attack in the open. All they did was
to keep up a terrible artillery fire. Shrapnel shells were bursting
over us, but amid all this we took heed of only one word, 'Advance,'
and advance we did. Our regiment had a centre position. On we all
went. We neared the crest of the hill behind which was our goal. About
twenty yards from the crest we lay down and our company commander,
Captain Haggard, advanced to the top, saw the Germans and then shouted,
'Fix bayonets, boys, here they are.' What an officer! What a soldier!
He himself used a rifle. We 'fixed' and were prepared to follow him
anywhere, but we were checked by a storm of maxim fire. We knew by the
sound that we were up against a tremendous force. There was only one
game to play now--bluff them into the belief that we were as strong as
themselves, so we were ordered 'rapid firing,' which gives an enemy
the impression that the firing force is strong. We popped away like
this for three hours, never moving an inch from our position, and our
officers standing up to locate the enemy every now and again. We lost
four officers in about twenty minutes. Men were getting hit, bullets
coming at us from our front and both flanks. Still we hung on. Just
near me was lying our brave captain mortally wounded. As the shells
burst over us he would occasionally open his eyes, so full of pain,
and call out--but 'twas very weak--'Stick it, Welsh Regiment, stick
it, Welsh.' Many of us wounded managed to crawl up and down the firing
line 'dishing out' the ammunition we were unable to use. So our lads
stuck at it until our artillery got into action. We won. Out in that
field were strewn thousands and thousands of German dead and wounded.
They even piled them up and made barricades of their dead. Towards
dusk, though we were still exposed to terrible shell fire, and to
move was almost courting suicide, several of our lads volunteered to
collect and carry away the wounded. Many got hit in doing so, but they
cared nothing. We were taken to a little farmhouse to wait for the
field ambulance wagons. Officers were telling us yarns, were sending
everywhere for milk and resolutely refused to be bandaged until we were
seen to."
A wounded private of the Royal Munster Fusiliers told the following
story of fighting when the regiment had to bear the brunt of the whole
German attack, while the rest of the brigade fell back: "They came at
us from all points--horse, foot, artillery, and all, and the air was
thick with screaming, shouting men waving swords and blazing away at us
like blue murder. Our lads stood up to them without the least taste
of fear, and when their cavalry came down on us we received them with
fixed bayonets in front, the rear ranks firing away as steadily as you
please. All round us we saw them collecting until there was hardly
a hole fit for a wee mouse to get through, and then it was that the
hardest fight of all took place, for we wouldn't surrender, and tried
our hardest to cut through the stone wall of the Germans.
"It was hell's own work, but we never hoisted the white flag. One of
our men has been recommended for the Distinguished Service Medal. When
the man--who was working the machine gun--was killed he came up and
took his place. Then the gun was smashed altogether, and his hand blown
off with a shell."
The nickname of the regiment is "Dirty Shirts," and because of their
heavy losses on this occasion it was said that the Germans had cleaned
up the "Dirty Shirts." "Well," said an indignant Fusilier, "it was a
moighty expensive washin' for them, anny way."
One of the Irish Dragoon Guards carried a wounded trooper to a
farmhouse under fire. A German patrol called at the house and found
them. From behind a barrier the Dragoons kept the Germans at bay. The
Germans then brought a machine gun up and threatened to destroy the
house. Rather than bring suffering on their hosts or the village
the two hunted men made a rush out with some mad idea, perhaps, of
taking the gun that had been brought against them. They got no further
than the threshold of the door, where they fell dead, their blood
bespattering the walls of the house.
The 4th Royal Fusiliers were in a warm corner. They were being fired
at by outnumbering artillery and infantry, and they were, as one of
them said, "like a lot of schoolboys at a treat" when ordered to fix
bayonets and charge. "We had about 200 yards to cover before we got
near them, and then we let them have it. It put us in mind of tossing
hay, only we had human bodies. I was separated from my neighbours and
was on my own when I was attacked by three Germans. I had a lively time
and was nearly done when a comrade came to my rescue. I had already
made sure of two, but the third would have finished me. I already had
about three inches of steel in my side when my chum finished him."
The special correspondent of _The Daily Mail_ told the following. One
hundred and fifty Highlanders were detailed to hold a bridge over the
river Aisne. The Germans opened fire from the woods around, and another
body of them greatly outnumbering the Highlanders rushed towards the
bridge. For a time they were kept at bay. Then the maxim gun belonging
to the little force ceased its fire, for the whole of its crew had been
killed, and the gun stood there on its tripod silent, amid a ring of
dead bodies. A Highlander ran forward under the bullet storm, seized
the maxim, slung tripod and all on to his back, and carried it at a run
across the exposed bridge to the far side facing the German attack.
The belt of the gun was still charged, and there, absolutely alone,
the soldier sat down in full view of the enemy, and opened a hail of
bullets upon the advancing column. Under the tempest of fire the column
wavered, and then broke. Almost the moment after the Highlander fell
dead beside his gun.
In a night attack upon the Worcester Regiment the Germans used the
bayonet, which they seldom did, and it was far from a success for them,
though there were great masses of them. "We gave them," said a sergeant
of the Worcesters, "one terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped
the ferocious impetus of their attack. For one terrible moment our
ranks bent under the dead weight, but the Germans, too, wavered, and in
that moment we gave them the bayonet, and hurled them back in disorder.
The Germans have the numbers; we have the men."
At Ypres our Army had to face and hold in check 250,000 Germans for
five days. In addition to the ordinary shell and shrapnel there were
shells from heavy siege guns brought from Antwerp. These churned up
the earth in the trenches and often buried our men who lay there. Over
and over again masses of the enemy's infantry advanced within a few
hundred yards. Then they halted and poured in a volley. They had no
relish for a bayonet charge. Over and over again men leapt from the
trenches and went at them with the bayonet. They fled, firing their
rifles over their shoulders as they ran. Many hundreds were captured,
and thousands were mown down with shell, with rifle, and machine-gun
fire. Still their shell and shrapnel rained upon our trenches. Fresh
infantry were brought up. The situation became critical; it seemed as
if our men would be over-borne by sheer weight of numbers. Still they
held on until the fifth day, when relief came and the position was
saved.
CHAPTER VI
Fights to a Finish
Those were stirring words which the Colonel of the Manchester Regiment
addressed to his men when they were surprised at Douai by very superior
numbers: "No surrender, lads! First you have your rifles, then your
bayonets, then the butts of your rifles, then your fists!"
Even with their fists our soldiers, on one occasion, made the Germans
pay for their treachery. "They attacked our position in very strong
numbers, but we kept them at bay until they played a trick on us that
cost us dear, but not so dear as it cost themselves. They got to two
hundred yards of our trenches, then the fire was so hot for them that
they hoisted the white flag. Of course we stopped firing, and some got
up to go out and take them prisoners, but as soon as they got up to
them they opened a pitiless fire on our fellows. For a moment our chaps
were taken by surprise, but it was the sight of a lifetime to see them
a moment later. Straight into the German masses they sprang, and with
their bayonets, butts of their rifles, and even their fists, they set
about them. The slaughter was terrible. Soon the Germans had had enough
of Tommy Atkins when his temper is roused. They broke and fled in utter
disorder. You ought to have heard them yell; it was like a wild beast
show let loose."
A company of the Middlesex Regiment were also handy with their fists.
Alas! these were not sufficient. They were digging trenches near Mons
when a mass of Germans, who seemed to come from nowhere, bore down
upon them. Bayonets in hand, they rushed upon our men, who were quite
unprepared in the matter of equipment, but the sergeant of the company
set the lead by the use of his fists, and "downed two Germans with two
successive blows." The whole company followed their sergeant's lead,
but they were mowed down like grass.
Here is a typical Irish description from a Munster Fusilier: "The
Germans seem to think that you can catch Irish soldiers with
fly-papers, for they just stepped up the other day and called on us to
surrender, as bold as you like and bolder. We didn't waste any words in
telling them to go about their business, but we just grabbed hold of
our bayonets and signed to them to come on if they wanted anything, but
they didn't seem in any great hurry to meet us. After a bit they opened
fire on us with a couple of maxims, but we fixed bayonets and went for
the guns with a rush. They appear to be delicate boys indeed, and can't
stand very much rough usage with the bayonet. We got their guns. Their
cavalry had a try at getting them back later on, but we let them have
it with bayonet and rifle, and they got sick of it altogether before
long. A big party of them tried the other day to cut off four companies
of the Royal Irish Regiment advancing to relieve a French force hard
pressed on our left. The Germans lined up along the road just like the
police at home trying to turn back a procession that wasn't approved
of. The Royal Irish boys didn't take the least heed until they were
right up at the Germans, and then they gave them it blazing hot with
the bayonet. The Germans' pluck lasts until we are fifty yards from
them, and then they are off. It would do you good to see our little
chaps chasing great big fellows shouting and laughing. You wouldn't
think it was war."
A British Guardsman related how his regiment received German cavalry:
"Suddenly the cavalry remounted their horses, and came crashing down
on our chaps. 'Now, Guards!' was all the officer in command said, but
his men knew what he meant, and they braced themselves for the tussle.
They lined up in the good old British square that has proved a terror
to European armies before, and the front ranks waited with the bayonet,
while the men inside kept blazing away at the advancing horsemen.
They came closer and closer, and the earth seemed to shake and quiver
beneath their rush. 'Steady!' was all the commander of the ---- Guards
said, and he said it in a dull way, as though he were giving a nice
piece of advice to some noisy youngsters who had been making a row. The
men answered not a word, but they set their teeth. Then the crash came.
Steel met steel, and sparks shot out as sword crossed bayonet. The game
of the Germans was to ride down our ranks, but they didn't know that
that trick won't work with British troops, and the Guardsmen kept their
ground, in spite of the weight of men and horses. The Germans came to
a dead stop, and just then they got a volley from the centre of the
square. They broke and scattered, and then they got another volley. The
order was given to the Guards, and they dashed after them towards the
point where our other men were expected."
On another occasion the Brigade of Guards, who were doing a slow
retreat for rest, and who were being followed by a brigade of Germans,
over double their strength, suddenly stopped, and hiding in a wood
waited for the Germans. In a pitched battle, with fixed bayonets, they
wiped the whole crowd out--over 4,000 of them. General French had this
recorded, and it was read out to all the troops on special parade.
Rifleman Cummings, of the King's Royal Rifles, wrote to his mother: "I
shall never forget the first day under fire. It commenced on our left,
and in a short time, in spite of heroic efforts, we watched it silence
a battery of our guns. The ear-splitting crash of eight shells bursting
along our line at once was terrible. However, we held on all day and
part of the night. We knew it was part of the scheme, our retiring,
and, although hundreds must have been suffering agonies with their
feet, the boys always managed a song and a cheer. One night we reached
a town and had just settled down in our billets saying to ourselves,
'Now for a well-earned rest,' when we were suddenly ordered to fall
in. Our officer told us the Germans had captured a bridge about a mile
from the town, and the General had sent word it had to be taken at all
costs. It was a dark road and we were all in single file. There was a
continued stream of wounded coming up from the bridge. After one or two
charges the bridge was taken at the point of the bayonet."
Private Fairweather, of the Black Watch, gives this account of an
engagement on the Aisne: "The Guards went up first and then the
Camerons, both having to retire. Although we had watched the awful
slaughter in these regiments, when it was our turn we went off with a
cheer across 1,500 yards of open country. The shelling was terrific
and the air was full of the screams of shrapnel. Only a few of us
got up to 200 yards of the Germans. Then with a yell we went at them.
The air whistled with bullets, and it was then that my shout of '42nd
for ever!' finished with a different kind of yell. Crack! I had been
presented with a souvenir in my knee. I lay helpless and our fellows
retired over me. Shrapnel screamed all round, and melinite shells made
the earth shake. I bore a charmed life. A bullet went through the elbow
of my jacket, another through my equipment, and a piece of shrapnel
found a resting place in a tin of bully beef which was on my back. I
was picked up eventually during the night, nearly dead from loss of
blood."
There is little of the glory of war for the wounded when they are
waiting to be picked up by the stretcher-bearers and wondering whether
they will be picked up at all. No wonder that an officer wrote in a
letter: "If ever I come back, and anybody at home talks to me about the
glory of war, I shall be d----d rude to him."
This is how another Scotch regiment cleared a road for French artillery
when German guns were preventing them from passing along it.
The General commanding the British troops demanded for his men the
honour of clearing the way. A Scotch regiment was ordered forward. They
left the road and advanced in open order across the marshy ground
on the left towards the position where the German guns were firing.
The German fire was deadly, but nothing could stop the Scotch men.
They made a series of short rushes, making ample use of the ditches,
which every hundred yards or so cross the peat bog, to take cover.
They were soon within charging distance. The order for fix bayonets
was given, and with a ripple the whole line dashed forward. Ditches,
barbed wire, and a hail of bullets from quickfirers did not stop them.
A rush carried them right up to the German guns, and they bayoneted the
gunners at their pieces. A few minutes sufficed to damage the breeches
of the guns and so render them useless, and then the regiment fell
back, its task accomplished. The brief period this brilliant charge of
the Scotch regiment had lasted was sufficient for the French guns to
gallop along the road to safety, and they soon came into action.
CHAPTER VII
Cavalry Charges
A nervous young man broke down when trying at a party to recite
Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade." The considerate hostess said,
"Just give it in your own words, Mr. ----" My words are very inadequate
to describe the charge of the 9th Lancers at Toulin. Terrible damage
was being done to British infantry and artillery by eleven German guns
concealed in a wood. At last the commanding officer of the Lancers
said, "We must take those guns," and ordered his men to charge. They
rode straight at the guns though "stormed at by shot and shell."
"They were like men inspired," declared a spectator, "and it seemed
incredible that any one could escape alive." When the brave fellows got
near the guns they came across hidden wire entanglements. Horses and
men went down in a heap. Nothing, however, could stop them. They got to
the guns, cut down the gunners, and put the guns out of action.
The Lancers took the praises that were given to them very modestly.
"We only fooled round and saved some guns," they said.
At St. Quentin the Black Watch and Scots Greys acted in concert. As
at the battle of Waterloo, the Highlanders got into the thick of the
fight by holding on to the stirrup leathers of the cavalry. The Greys
plunged straight into the ranks of the enemy, each horseman accompanied
by a comrade on foot, and the Germans, taken completely by surprise,
were broken up and repulsed with tremendous losses. "Our men," said
a wounded eye-witness of the charges, "came on with a mighty shout,
and fell upon the enemy with the utmost violence. The weight of the
horses carried them into the close-formed ranks of the Germans, and the
gallant Greys and the 'Kilties' gave a fearful account of themselves."
On another occasion the Scots Greys, seeing the wounded cut at by
the German officers, went mad, and, even though the retreat had been
sounded, a non-commissioned officer leading, they turned on the Potsdam
Guards and hewed their way through, their officers following. Having
got through, the officers took command again, formed them up, wheeled,
and came back the way they went!
Truly the Greys lived up to or died up to their motto "Second to none."
They charged no less than five times at the battle of Mons. One of
them thus wrote: "The Germans and our people had been fighting at long
range for several hours and we stood looking on, impatient to get at
them. Our officers told us not to worry, as our chance would come, and
we soon found that they were right. The enemy, greatly outnumbering
our chaps, kept creeping up slowly in spite of tremendous losses. One
body was endeavouring to work round our flank, and when they came
close enough we had our chance. We tore down into them, cutting and
thrusting. They did not wait long, we were covered with blood and so
were our horses."
Of a combined charge of the Scots Greys and the 12th Lancers, a
sergeant of the Berkshire regiment wrote: "It was grand. I could see
some of the Germans dropping on their knees and holding up their arms.
Then, as soon as our cavalry got through, the Germans picked up their
rifles and started firing again. Our men turned about and charged back.
It was no use the Germans putting up their hands a second time. Our
cavalry cut down every one they came to. I don't think there were ten
Germans left out of about 2,000."
The officer commanding the brigade said that it went through the German
cavalry as circus horses might go through paper hoops.
Another episode was the capture of fourteen German guns by the 2nd and
5th Dragoons. They were attacked at dawn in a fog, and it looked bad
for them, but they turned it into a victory.
An officer wrote: "There was no stopping them once they got on the
move. Many flung away their tunics and fought with their shirt sleeves
rolled up above the elbow. One trooper with his shirt in ribbons
actually stooped so low from his saddle as to snatch a wounded comrade
from instant death at the hands of a powerful German. Then, having
swung the man right round to the near side, he made him hang on to his
stirrup leather while he lunged his sword clean through the German's
neck."
Well might Sir John French write in an official despatch, "Our cavalry
do what they like with the enemy."
I was at Pekin at the end of the Boxer trouble in China, and was
standing one day near a German officer when a regiment of Indian
cavalry marched past. The German officer made many disparaging remarks
about them. The following is a description of the first charge in this
war of our Indian cavalry, and the Germans must have learned from it
that Indian soldiers are as little contemptible as is the rest of
French's army:
"The charge took place one day when the enemy had been pressing us
hard all along the line. We had been at it hammer and tongs for three
weeks, and were feeling the strain. Towards nightfall the enemy kept
pressing closer and closer, and it looked as though their deadweight
alone was going to force us back. Their plan seemed to be to break our
line at a point where they guessed our men to be most exhausted. Just
when they were half way towards our trenches, the Indians, who had
arrived the day before and were anxious to get into it, were brought
up. At the word of command they swept forward, only making a slight
detour to get out of the line of our fire, and then they swept into the
Germans from the left like a whirlwind. The enemy were completely taken
aback. The Turcos they knew, but these men, with their flashing eyes,
dark skins, and white, gleaming teeth, not to mention their terribly
keen-edged lances, they could not understand. The Indians didn't give
them much time to arrive at an understanding. With a shrill yell they
rode right through the German infantry, thrusting right and left with
their terrible lances, and bringing a man down every time. The Germans
broke and ran for their lives, pursued by the Lancers for about a mile.
When the Indians came back from their charge they were cheered wildly
all along our line, but they didn't think much of what they had done."
CHAPTER VIII
Grit and Guns
In no way has British grit shown itself more in this war than in the
capture of German guns and in the defence of our own.
At Neri three artillerymen of the now famous L Battery R.H.A., inspired
by their heroic commanding officer, continued to serve the only gun not
silenced. The three heroes have been given the Victoria Cross.
Driver Grimes, of the Royal Field Artillery, gave the following account
of what happened: "We were about two miles away when we got word to
come to the relief of 'L' battery. When we arrived on the scene a
terrible sight met our eyes. The battery had been blown to smithereens.
Guns were smashed or overturned; some were untouched, but useless,
because there was nobody to work them. Officers and men lay dead and
wounded on every side. All the officers were killed, and one poor young
fellow lay crushed beneath an overturned gun. Haystacks were blazing
round about; the place was dense with smoke from shell fire. The
Germans took them by surprise, and opened on them at no more than 600
yards' range. It was wonderful that anybody could have lived through
such a hell--it was nothing else. But there were the sergeant-major
and a couple of drivers working away like madmen at one of the guns,
coats off, shirts torn open, and bleeding from minor wounds. They never
looked round, but kept potting away for all they were worth. We were
only in time. For almost immediately we came on the scene they fired
their last remaining charge. The Germans cleared off as soon as we got
agoing, and we never heard them that day again. I was one of those who
assisted the three men back to the ambulance. 'Have you got a glass of
water?' one of them asked. 'We got it pretty hot in there just now,' he
added. 'You don't need to tell us that,' we replied, looking round at
the great holes which the German shells had torn up in the ground on
every side."
Captain Bradbury, R.H.A., had served a gun himself, and knocked out
one German gun. He had one leg shot away; but fired off a round or
two, until the other leg was taken off. A doctor came to help him, and
all he asked from him was morphia so that the men might not hear him
screaming.
In a charge at Toulin, Captain Grenfell, of the 9th Lancers, was hit
in both legs, and had two fingers shot off at the same time. Almost
as he received these wounds a couple of guns posted near were deprived
of their servers, all of whom save one man were struck by bursting
shrapnel. The horses for the guns had been placed under cover. "We'll
get the guns back," cried Captain Grenfell, and at the head of a number
of his men, and in spite of his wounds, he did manage to harness the
guns up and get them away. He was then taken to hospital.
The final scene at a British battery during the retirement after the
battle of Mons is thus described by Gunner B. Wiseman, of the Royal
Field Artillery: "Our battery had fired their last round. The Germans
were only three hundred yards away. The order was given, 'Retire. Every
man for himself.' It was a splendid but awful sight to see horses, men,
and guns racing for life, with shells bursting among them. The Germans
rushed up, and I lay helpless. A German pointed his rifle at me to
surrender. I refused, and was just on the point of being put out when
a German officer saved me. He said, 'Englishman, brave fool.' He then
dressed my wound, and gave me brandy and wine, and left me."
About fifty men of the Royal Berkshire Regiment were trying to save
some guns at Soissons, and this is what happened in the words of a
sergeant in a letter to his wife: "We had an order to abandon the guns,
but our young officer said, 'No, boys, we will never let a German take
a British gun.' Our chaps let up a cheer, and kept up a rapid fire. The
guns had fired all their ammunition, but we kept on. Then the Staffords
came up and reinforced us on our left flank. We then saw the gun teams
coming up to fetch the guns."
The following is a letter of a major in the Royal Field Artillery, to
his wife: "At last we came to the edge of the wood, and in front of us,
about 200 yards away, was a little cup-shaped copse, and the enemy's
trenches with machine-guns a little farther on. I felt sure this wood
was full of Germans, as I had seen them go on earlier. I started to
gallop for it, and the others followed. Suddenly about fifty Germans
bolted out firing at us. I loosed off my revolver as fast as I could
and ---- loosed off his rifle from the saddle. They must have thought
we were a regiment of cavalry, for except a few they suddenly yelled
and bolted. I stopped and dismounted my lot to fire at them to make
sure they didn't change their minds. I held the horses, as I couldn't
shoot them like that myself. I then suddenly saw there were more in
the copse--so I mounted the party and galloped at it, yelling, with
my revolver held out. As I came to it I saw it was full of Germans,
so I yelled 'Hands up!' and pointed the revolver at them. They all
chucked down their rifles and put their hands up. Three officers and
over forty men to ten of us with six rifles and a revolver. I herded
them away from their rifles and handed them over to the Welsh regiment
behind us. I tore on with the trumpeter and the sergeant-major to the
machine-guns. At that moment the enemy's shrapnel, the German infantry
who'd got away, and our own howitzers, thinking we were hostile
cavalry, opened fire on us. We couldn't move the beastly things, and
it was too hot altogether, so we galloped back to the cup wood and
they hailed shrapnel on us there. I waited for a lull, and mounted all
my lot behind the bushes and made them sprint as I gave the word to
gallop for cover to the woods where the Welsh company was. There I got
----, who understands them, and an infantryman who volunteered to help,
and ---- and ran up to the maxims, and took out the breech mechanism
of both and one of the belts and carried away one whole maxim. We
couldn't manage the other. The Welsh asked what cavalry we were. I
told them we were the staff of the ---- battery and they cheered us,
but said we were mad. We got back very slowly on account of the gun
and the men wild with excitement, and we have got the one gun complete
and the mechanism and belt of the other. The funniest thing was the
little trumpeter, who swept a German's helmet off his head and waved
it in the air shouting, 'I've got it,' wild with excitement. He is an
extraordinarily brave boy."
Lance-Corporal Bignell, Royal Berks, tells how he saw two R.F.A.
drivers bring a gun out of action at Mons. Shells had been flying
round the position, and the gunners had been killed, whereupon the two
drivers went to rescue the gun. "It was a good quarter of a mile away,
yet they led their horses calmly through a hail of shell to where the
gun stood. Then one man held the horses while the other limbered up."
A Highlander, called Wilson, single-handed captured a German gun. Six
Germans were in charge of the gun. Wilson picked off five with his
rifle, bayoneted the sixth, and then tried to turn the gun on the
enemy. Unfortunately it jammed, and an officer coming up helped him to
destroy it. Wilson has been given the Victoria Cross.
Another Highlander had more of guns than he bargained for. In a night
fight he lost his regiment, and was picked up by a battery of the Royal
Field Artillery, who gave him a lift. But he did not rest long, for the
kind gunners went into action ten minutes afterwards with their visitor
sitting on one of their guns.
A private in the 1st Lincolns, who has returned home wounded, described
how two companies of his regiment captured a battery of six German
guns, one of which is now in London:
"During the German retreat the British were held up on a ridge by a
battery. Two companies of us made a detour on the right, marched down
a valley out of sight of the German gunners, and entered a wood on
the enemy's left. The German battery, about 200 yards away, were busy
with their work in front, not dreaming that we were on their flank. In
extended order we took steady aim, and at the first round every man of
the German battery fell. That was all we fired. Our artillery continued
firing on the guns and smashed four. The other two were taken. We were
afterwards commended."
In _The Times_ appeared the following account, gathered from letters
received from brother officers at the front, of the charge in which
Lieutenant Sir Archibald Gibson Craig gave his life:
"He was shot while leading his men to the attack of a German machine
gun which was hidden in a wood. He located the gun and asked our second
in command whether he might take his platoon (about twenty men) and try
to capture the gun, which was doing a lot of damage to our troops at
the time. The major gave his consent, and Gibson Craig went off to get
the gun.... They crawled to the top of the hill and found themselves
unexpectedly face to face with a large body of Germans. Our men fired
a volley, and then the lieutenant drew his sword and rushed forward,
ahead of his men, calling to them 'Charge, men! At them!' He got to
within ten yards of them and then fell. By his gallant action he did
a great deal to assist the general advance of the regiment, and, in
fact, of the whole of the troops engaged. The remaining men silenced
the gun, and brought their comrades--two killed and three wounded--back
to the lines, two miles, under shell fire all the way, and not one was
touched."
A brilliant little exploit was performed by one of our cavalry patrols.
Coming suddenly upon a German machine-gun detachment, the subaltern in
command at once gave the order to charge, with a result that some of
the Germans were killed, the rest scattered, and the gun was captured
and carried off.
One who was present described this "double event:"
"The sky turned pure black, and I knew we were going to have a heavy
shower. But we had a 'double event'--a shower of bullets also. I
could see we were attacked in the rear, and all was confusion for a
few minutes, but our men soon woke up, and we got the order to fix
bayonets. Down came the rain, and lightning and thunder. I stood for
a moment to survey the scene. It was like something you would read
about. We got the order to charge the guns, and you should have seen
the Irish Guards, 3rd Coldstreams and 2nd Grenadiers rush on them
like an avalanche. It was all over in ten minutes. The Germans stood
dumbfounded. I shouldn't like to stand in front of that charge myself.
Our men were drenched to the skin, but we didn't care, it only made us
twice as wild. Such dare-devil pluck I was glad to see."
On one occasion, when the Connaught Rangers were charging with their
bayonets to save guns of the Royal Field Artillery, the Germans put
up a white flag and afterwards fired on the Irishmen. This got up the
Connaught blood, and as one of the Rangers said, that "is nasty to be
up agin." The Rangers left their mark on the treacherous foe and saved
the guns.
At Charleroi another Irish regiment showed their grit in helping our
cavalry to save guns. The horses were shot from under our men, and
the Uhlans tried to capture our battery. Then the Munsters stuck to
the guns. They dashed forward with fixed bayonets, put the Germans to
flight, captured some of their horses, and all their guns.
"There's been a divil av a lot av talk about Irish disunion," says Mr.
Dooley, "but if there's foightin' to be done it's the bhoys that'll let
nobody else thread on the Union Jack."
A corporal of the Northamptonshire Regiment wrote: "The Germans, who
seemed to have the position to a hair's breadth, sent shells shrieking
and hissing around a battery of R.F.A. The horses got frantic and
began prancing, kicking, and calling out in terror. The drivers,
some of whom had dismounted in readiness for unlimbering, held on
like grim death, but the animals were in such a state of terror that
they could not be restrained, and at last they dashed off with the
guns in the direction of the German lines. The drivers on the ground
were knocked down, and one was run over by a carriage, but those who
were mounted stuck to their posts and did all they could to restrain
the mad horses. A party of new men with horses were brought out and
dashed off in pursuit of the terrified animals. They caught them up
soon and rode alongside to get hold of the runaways. It was no use,
however, and now they came within range of more German guns, and the
shells were bursting overhead, making the horses madder than ever.
There was nothing for it but to shoot them, and this was done after
some difficulty. Then it was necessary to take out the dead team and
put the new one in, while German shells were dropping round. Half of
the men were hit, but they meant to stick to their posts, and not all
the Germans in the field could have driven them away. Just as they were
getting the guns away a party of German infantry came on the scene, but
by that time our battery had moved out to cover the withdrawal of the
guns, and we gave the Germans as much as they could stand."
Simple heroism simply told is the keynote of a letter which Gunner
Batey, of the R.G.A., has written to the parents of Gunner F.S. Mann.
He says: "God bless your son. If it had not been for him I should not
be alive to tell the tale. We had been fighting for three days across
the Meuse, and I was severely wounded by shrapnel, and fell. We had to
retreat, but we were determined to save the guns. I fell again, and our
men drove off. Your son and I had fought side by side, and he missed
me. The noble lad came back through fires of hell, and carried me to
safety. He was wounded, but not dangerously. We are all proud of that
boy; he is always in the thick of it. All over the line you could hear
him shout, 'Lads, lads; the sooner we get through, the sooner we'll get
home.'"
CHAPTER IX
Gallantry of Individuals
An Irish Fusilier regiment was in a dangerous position and a messenger
was wanted to bring to the men an order to retire. Who would go? Every
man offered himself, though they knew that they would have to cross an
open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed for the honour, and the
first man who started with the message had not gone more than 200 yards
when he was wounded, but he rushed on till a second bullet brought him
down. Another man took on the message and got only a little way when he
was hit. A third messenger almost reached the endangered regiment when
he was shot. Half-a-dozen men ran out to bring him in. They all were
hit; but the wounded messenger making a supreme effort, crawled to the
regiment and delivered the message.
Similar gallantry was shown when the Munster Fusiliers were surrounded
and a driver of the R.F.A. named Pledge, who was shut up with them,
was asked to "cut through" and get the assistance of the artillery.
Pledge mounted a horse and dashed through the German lines. His horse
fell and Pledge's legs were injured. Nothing daunted, he got his horse
on its feet, and again set off at a great pace. To get to the artillery
he had to pass down a narrow road, which was lined with German
riflemen. He did not stop, however, but rode through without being hit
by a single bullet. He conveyed the message to the artillery, which
tore off to the assistance of the Munsters, and saved the situation.
In view of the death of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, the story told by
Corporal J. Jolley, King's Royal Rifles, has special interest. After
the retreat from Mons the Germans were severely punished. On reaching a
height overlooking Chorley-sur-Marne, the King's Royal Rifles were the
advance guard. They noticed the Germans preparing to blow up a bridge,
but they got away on seeing the British. The latter were ordered to
take the bridge. Prince Maurice was the first man over, and searched a
house all by himself--a brave act for an officer alone. The British got
across the bridge.
A short time before he was shot the cap of the Prince was struck by a
bullet. The Prince made a joke of the occurrence and laughed.
Among those who fell at Cambrai was Captain Clutterbuck, of the King's
Own (Lancaster) Regiment. He was killed while leading a bayonet charge.
"Just like Clutterbuck," wrote a wounded sergeant, describing the
officer's valour, and adding, "Lieutenant Steele-Perkins also died one
of the grandest deaths a British officer could wish for. He was lifted
out of the trenches wounded four times, but protested and crawled back
again till he was mortally wounded."
A British officer was in one of the Antwerp forts when it was being
pounded by great shells. When its doom was sealed the officer ordered
the mixed garrison to save themselves. They succeeded in doing so, but
the officer, who stuck to the fort as a captain to his sinking ship,
was made a prisoner.
A German prisoner told about a Lancashire Fusilier who had been cut off
and refused to surrender to two hundred Germans. He lay on the ground
and kept firing away until he hadn't a cartridge left, and as his
bayonet was gone he stood up with folded arms while they shot him down.
A corporal of the Fusilier Brigade held a company of Germans at bay for
two hours by firing at them from different points, and so making them
think they had a crowd to face. He was getting on very well until a
party of cavalry outflanked him, and as they were right on top of him
there was no deceiving as to his "strength," so he bolted, and the
Germans took the position he had held so long.
Rev. Percy Wyndham Guinness, Chaplain to the Forces, 3rd Cavalry
Brigade, was awarded a D.S.O., because on November 5th he brought Major
Dixon, 16th Lancers, when mortally wounded to an ambulance under heavy
fire, and on the afternoon of the same day, being the only individual
with a horse in the shelled area, took a message under heavy fire from
4th Hussars to headquarters of 3rd Cavalry Brigade.
An Englishman, who had just returned from making his way by the banks
of the Aisne in an attempt to take cigarettes to the troops, came
across a solitary grave. Twice he passed it, and his attention was
arrested by the fact that kindly hands each day strewed fresh flowers
over it. On the pontoon bridge near by a French detachment was keeping
guard, and the soldiers explained that the grave was that of an English
soldier who, quite alone, had there fought till overwhelmed by numbers.
During the great retreat he had strayed from his comrades and fallen
exhausted from fatigue. Unable to find them he took up his quarters in
an abandoned carriage, but thirty-six hours later the Germans appeared
on the other side of the Aisne and fired at him. Undeterred by the fact
that he was utterly alone he replied, and such was his determination
and accuracy of aim that the villagers declared he accounted for six
German officers, one of them a general, before he fell under a volley.
The French buried him where he had fought, and erected a cross in
honour of his gallantry.
The 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers were defending a bridge and the Germans
were firing into them. An officer called Stephens was severely wounded,
and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy if he had not been
rescued by one of the sergeants. Cropp (that was the sergeant's name)
went on the bridge, seized the wounded officer, and placed him on his
back. Instead of risking a journey across the shot-swept bridge, he
decided, encumbered as he was, to swim the canal, which he did. He swam
with the wounded officer out of the line of fire to a place of safety.
A private in the East Yorkshire Regiment tells the following
story--"One of the hardest night attacks we had to face was made
possible by the momentary carelessness of a lad of the Loyal North
Lancashires who was on guard and somehow allowed his thoughts to stray
in other directions so that he didn't notice the Germans until they
were on top of him. He was disarmed, and became terribly distressed
over the prospect of what his carelessness had brought on the Army. He
had one chance of redeeming his fault, and he took it. Just when the
Germans were half-way towards the sleeping camp he made a run for it.
He didn't go far, but the shots fired by the Germans warned the camp of
what was coming, and the advanced guard held them in check until the
main body got under arms. When we found that lad he was just able to
explain what had happened, but he was quite happy when I told him there
wasn't a soldier who wouldn't think that his heroism had atoned for the
original fault. At that he smiled and passed away."
Another private wrote: "One poor fellow here deserves the V.C. He saved
two officers under heavy firing; then after that a shell came and blew
a horse right in two. One part of the horse fell across the legs of
another wounded man. This fellow, named Morris, of the R.E., rushed out
and tried to pull the horse off him. He just managed to do so, and the
chap could get up, when another shell came and blew the wounded chap's
head and shoulders off, at the same time blowing half of Morris's right
leg off. The brave fellow has a wife and three children and is only
twenty-five years old. I am glad to say he is getting better, although
the whole of his leg has been taken off."
This story was told by a sergeant of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
"There was a man of the Manchester Regiment who was lying close to
the German lines terribly wounded. He happened to overhear some
conversation between German soldiers, and being familiar with the
language, he gathered that they intended to attack the position we held
that night. In spite of his wounds he decided to warn us of the danger,
and he set out on the weary tramp of over five miles. He was under fire
from the moment he got to his feet, but he stumbled along in spite of
that, and soon got out of range. Later he ran into a patrol of Uhlans,
but before they saw him he dropped to earth and shammed being dead.
They passed by without a sign, and then he resumed his weary journey.
But this time the strain had told on him, and his wound began to bleed,
marking his path towards our lines with thin red streaks. In the early
morning, just half an hour before the time fixed for the German attack,
he staggered into one of our advanced posts, and managed to tell his
story to the officer in charge before collapsing in a heap. Thanks to
the information he gave, we were ready for the Germans when they came,
and beat them off; but his anxiety to warn us had cost him his life."
There was a time during the battle of Ypres when our line, so thin
in comparison with that of the Germans, was in great danger of
being broken, but the courage of individuals of all ranks saved the
situation. The General commanding the division spent one day with his
staff in the trenches encouraging the men. Brigadier-General H.E. Watts
rushed into the firing line on one occasion to rally the infantry.
A spy, a German in a British uniform, had brought an order to retire
at a moment when retirement would have meant annihilation. From his
post in a château the Brigadier saw the movement. He acted at once.
He ran through a storm of shrapnel, placed himself at the head of the
battalions, formed them up under cover of a road, and then headed them
at the charge back to the trench they had vacated.
Private Jones and Private Vennicombe, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards,
decided that they would rescue Colonel Ponsonby, their colonel, who had
fallen. Although German bullets were falling fast, the two men made a
dash towards their colonel's body. They found that he had been shot in
the leg, and was unable to walk. Between them they managed to get back
safely into the cover of their companions, carrying their colonel.
So great was the gallantry of Private Goggins, of the Leinster
Regiment, that in a night he brought in under fire no less than sixty
wounded men.
Sergeant-major White, of the Army Service Corps, was awarded the
Victoria Cross for a deed which he thus described to an interviewer.
"We got orders at night to move a convoy. We ran into an ambush of
Uhlans and they gave it to us hot. I accounted for four of them with my
sword, but we had to retire. When we reached a place where we could
pull ourselves together the officer asked if anyone had seen Captain
Grey, who was in charge. It was stated he had been shot down, and I
said I would go back for him. I went and found him, and placing him
across my horse, galloped back to safety with bullets whistling round.
I was hit in both legs."
Lance-corporal F.W. Holmes, of the 2nd Battalion King's Own Yorkshire
Light Infantry, after carrying a wounded man out of the trenches under
heavy fire assisted to drive a gun out of action by taking the place
of the driver, who had been wounded. His letters to his wife contained
no mention of his deeds, but after he was invalided home with a bullet
wound in the leg, he informed her that he had received the French
Medaille Militaire and had been recommended for the Victoria Cross.
An officer of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, writing to the
parents of Private Tom Barry, said: "All letters written by men have to
be read and signed by an officer. Your son is under me (on the maxim
gun), and I read his letters. I see he is too modest to tell you that
he has been mentioned for conspicuous conduct. During an advance the
man carrying one of the maxims was wounded and lying in the open. Your
son ran out from under cover, brought the gun up to the firing line,
and then went back for the ammunition he had previously been carrying.
He is a good soldier, and I am proud to have him in my section. If you
have any more like Tom, send them out here."
War in the air has given to many individuals an opportunity of showing
gallantry. An officer thus described a duel between a German and a
British airman. "The German manœuvred for position and prepared to
attack, but our fellow was too quick for him, and darted into a higher
plane. The German tried to circle round and follow, and so in short
spurts they fought for mastery, firing at each other all the time,
the machines swaying and oscillating violently. The British airman,
however, well maintained his ascendancy. Then suddenly there was a
pause, the German machine began to reel, the wounded pilot had lost
control, and with a dive the aeroplane came to earth half a mile away.
Our man hovered about for a time, and then calmly glided away over the
German lines to reconnoitre."
CHAPTER X
Self Put Aside
The following are abbreviated narratives from letters printed in
several papers:
Five wounded British soldiers who had lost their regiment managed to
limp in the wake of the army until they found an officer lying wounded
in a trench. They were all too weak to carry him, but they told him
that they could not leave him there to the tender mercies of the
butchers. "Push on, my lads," he replied. "England wants every man who
can possibly save himself. Better for one life to be lost than six."
But they did not leave him, and soon almost jumped for joy to see a
motor-car flying the British flag. They were taken in the car to a
French hospital.
We are so accustomed, however, to read of officers saying, when
mortally wounded, to their men, "Do your duty, my lads, and never mind
me," that their self-forgetfulness almost ceases to surprise.
One officer was hit, and his men were for putting on his first field
dressing. "No," said he, "I am past that, but for God's sake don't let
the Germans break the line."
There was a British gunner whose wonderful marksmanship was the talk of
his battery. One shell blew up a railway station, the second fell plumb
into a German victualling train, and the third lopped off the team of
an advancing battery. Finally the German gunners hit him in the legs.
Even then he would not leave the field. "Carry me to the gun and let me
have one more shot," he implored. His comrades did so, and without a
groan he took his last aim.
A similar instance of self-sacrifice for the sake of duty was related
in _The Evening News_ by Private R.G. Tipper, of the 3rd Battalion
Grenadier Guards. "There was a man in the trenches who had not got
a clean sheet; he was always getting into trouble for one thing or
another. He got hit in the left arm. He crawled back to the nearest
field ambulance, and had his wound dressed. We advised him to go to
the rear, but he refused, and with difficulty made his way back to the
firing line. There, despite his wounded arm, he steadily went on firing
at the enemy. Some time passed, and he was shot in the right arm. Again
he made the difficult and painful journey to the field hospital, and
again, with both his arms injured, he stubbornly insisted on crawling
back to the trench. By-and-by he collapsed, shot clean through the
body. Several comrades ran to him and raised him. 'You must get back
now,' they told him. 'No,' he said with a white face, 'let me be. The
blighters have done me this time.' His rifle still rested where he had
been firing, supported in its loophole. 'Hoist me up before you go,'
he muttered, 'I'll give them another round, so help me! Prop me up,
quick.' They knew they could do nothing. They propped him up beside his
rifle and went to the other wounded men. With fumbling hands the dying
man pointed his rifle, and let drive two more rounds at the enemy. Then
he slipped down dead."
The fighting around Ypres involved a great amount of very risky
observation work. In many instances artillery subalterns took up
dangerous positions well in advance of the front line of infantry, and,
telephone in hand, gave the range to the gunners with perfect calmness.
A young lieutenant posted himself in a tower a few hundred yards from
the German trenches. He telephoned his orders regularly for half an
hour. Then he said, without any trace of excitement, to the operator
on the other side, "I hear the Germans coming up the stairs. I have my
revolver. Don't believe anything more you hear." With these words he
dropped the receiver; and he has not been heard of since.
When there is the excitement and stimulus of a "gallery" it is
comparatively easy to be brave; but think of the heroism of such
lonely work as that which was done by Lieutenant F.H.N. Davidson,
R.F.A. Early in the day our gunners had found it impossible to locate
certain German guns which were fast rendering our trenches untenable.
The country was so flat that there was no possible point of vantage
from which the gunners could observe except the steeple of the church
in Lourges. But the Germans knew that as well as we did, so the
church was being vigorously shelled, and already no less than twelve
lyddite shells had been pitched into it. It was the duty of Lieutenant
Davidson to "observe," so he calmly went to the church, climbed the
already tottering tower, and, seated on the top, proceeded to telephone
his information to the battery. In consequence German battery after
battery was silenced, the infantry, which at one time was in danger of
extermination, was saved, and the position, in spite of an attack in
overwhelming force by the enemy, was successfully held. The church was
rendered a scrap heap, but still Davidson sat on the remnants of his
tower. For seven solid hours expecting death every moment, he calmly
scanned the country, and telephoned his reports. At dark his task was
done, and he came down to rejoin the battery. As he left the ruins a
fall of timber in one of the burning houses lit up everything with a
sudden glare, there was the crack of a rifle--the German trenches were
only a few hundred yards away--and a bullet passed through the back of
his neck and out through his mouth. But, without hurrying his pace, he
walked to his battery, gave them his final information, and then said,
"I think I'd better go and find the field ambulance, for the beggars
have drilled a hole in me that needs plugging." And he walked half a
mile to the nearest "collecting point."
A man who was struck with four bullets in his thighs remarked, "What
luck to have got all four; that means three comrades more to fight the
Germans."
A private of the 1st Warwicks was hit with a shrapnel bullet at the
battle of Mons. He said, "Good luck to the old regiment," and rolled
over on his back dead. What _esprit de corps_! What forgetfulness of
self!
The gunner who wrote the following had the freedom from self which
enables us to sympathise: "I had comparatively little pain, though
it seemed that my arm had been blown away. I could not verify this,
because I was so numb it was impossible to move. What did hurt was the
sight of pal after pal around me either killed outright at one go, or
'snuffing it' in agony quite near."
Another soldier, though mortally wounded himself, felt so much for a
wounded pal that he said to the doctor, "See to that poor bloke first.
He is going home; he will be home before me."
Some of the Irish Dragoons went to the assistance of a man of the Irish
Rifles who, wounded himself, was yet kneeling beside a fallen comrade
of the Gloucester Regiment, and gamely firing to keep the enemy off.
The Dragoons found both men thoroughly worn out, but urgency required
the regiment to take up another position, and the wounded men had to be
left. "They knew that," said the trooper who related the incident, "and
weren't the men to expect the general safety to be risked for them.
'Never mind,' said the young Irishman, 'shure the Red Cross chaps'll
pick us up all right, an' if they don't--well, we've only once to die,
an' it's the grand fight we've had, anny-how.'"
Private F. Bruce, of the Suffolk Regiment, acted in this
self-forgetting way when wounded. After much hesitation he told the
story to a newspaper interviewer: "The bullet that hit me prevented me
from shooting. I said to a mate, 'I'm no good, so I'll make room for a
better man.' He said, 'Don't go in this lot, you'll get riddled with
bullets.' I said, 'Neck or nothing, mate; I'm keeping out somebody who
could do more good than me.' I got up and ran about twenty yards, and
a lyddite-shell burst about five or six yards in front of me, nearly
bringing me down with the suffocating fumes. I regained my footing,
and ran further, until I came to two artillery men. One was wounded in
five places, and the other was all right. After giving the wounded man
water, I tried to get to another fellow. Every time I made a start the
Germans began firing at me, as they were closing round my company. But
I was determined to go, and I made a dash for it. I ran about twenty
yards, and dived into some standing corn. I got to the poor fellow. A
live shell had burst and hit him in the lower part of the body. I asked
him if I could do anything for him, and he said, 'Yes; have you got a
rifle?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Well,' he said, 'for God's sake shoot me out
of my misery.' I told him I could not do that, so I gave him water. A
Highlander came up with a wound straight through the elbow. I bandaged
him up. At that time the Germans were only about 60 yards away. We had
to make a dash for our lives. I saw my company captured just at our
rear, but we managed to get to safety."
Even for one of the enemy self was bravely put aside. Seeing a wounded
German lying between the German and British trenches, a British officer
ordered the "Cease Fire," and himself went out to pick up the man.
He was struck by several bullets before the Germans saw what he was
doing and ceased firing. Thereupon the British officer staggered to
the fallen man and carried him to the German lines. A German officer
received him with a salute, and, calling for cheers, pinned upon the
breast of the British hero an Iron Cross. Then the Britisher returned
to his own trenches. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross, but
succumbed to his wounds.
A soldier wrote: "I saw a handful of Irishmen throw themselves in front
of a regiment of cavalry, who were trying to cut off a battery of horse
artillery. It was one of the finest deeds I ever saw. Not one of the
poor lads got away alive, but they made the German devils pay in kind,
and, anyhow, the artillery got away to account for many more Germans."
A private told the following to a newspaper correspondent: "A picket
of our regiment posted on a hill overlooking our left was surprised
in the early morning by a party of German infantry who had crept up
under cover of a mist. Our men refused to surrender, and all were shot
down but one, who was overpowered by the Germans. They wanted to get
information about our strength from him, and thought they had only to
offer him his life in return. He refused to tell anything, and then
they were going to shoot him, when he made a dash for it. At that
moment a party of our men, alarmed by the firing, came up, and the
Germans were cut off."
A sergeant wrote: "There was a man of the Buffs who carried a wounded
chum for over a mile under German fire, but if you suggested a Victoria
Cross for that man he would punch your head, and as he's a regular
devil when roused the men say as little as they can about it. He thinks
he didn't do anything out of the common, and doesn't see why his name
should be dragged into the papers."
So, too, an English colonel who had saved the life of a French private
kept the deed a secret for fear of "a beastly fuss" being made about it.
Similar modesty was shown by a Highlander who helped a wounded comrade
for four days through a country full of Germans. "When I found them,"
wrote a lance-corporal, "they had only a few biscuits between them. I
pressed the unwounded man to tell me how they managed to get through
the four days on six biscuits, but he always got angry and told me to
shut up. He had gone without anything; and had given the biscuits to
the wounded man."
Near Cambrai one dark night the British took the offensive against the
Germans, who were holding a bridge spanning the canal. When our men
reached an embankment running sharply down to the river several failed
to secure a foothold, and fell into the water. Four of the men who were
unable to swim, were in imminent danger of drowning, when Corporal
Brindall, an excellent swimmer, plunged into the river and rescued
all four in turn. He was clambering up the embankment himself, when a
German shell exploded near him, killing him instantly.
A man of the West Yorkshire Regiment took off his coat and equipment,
and walked over to the German trenches under a perfect hail of bullets
and brought back the adjutant, then made ten more journeys, bringing in
the colonel and nine men. He has been recommended for the V.C.
A soldier wrote in this way of an engagement: "We got the order to
retire none too soon, for we had just left the trenches when the
Germans swept across the plain where we had been entrenched. Our
officer in command was wounded at 3.30 a.m., but notwithstanding
his wound he stuck to his post, and it was not until 1 p.m. that we
discovered he was wounded and unable to walk. As we marched past him
it cheered us greatly to hear him say, 'Good boys, you've had a very
successful day.'"
In one of the first battles of the war a British soldier rode on a
bicycle through the bullets of German sharpshooters to warn French
soldiers that they were going into an ambush. After the daring deed
the French commander dismounted from his horse, took from his own tunic
a medal he himself had won for bravery, and pinned it on the British
cyclist's breast. "It was given to me, _mon camarade_," he said, "for
saving one life. I have the honour to present it to you for saving the
lives of hundreds."
Private J. Warwick, of the 2nd Durham Light Infantry, did not wish to
speak of the deeds for which he was recommended for the V.C. After some
persuasion, however, he told the story. "The Germans were entrenched
not 80 yards away on the other side of a hill, their trenches being
far more formidable than ours. We had not very long to wait before
shells and bullets began to fly about us in all directions. Our men
tried to rush up the hill, but first one and then the other fell under
the hail of fire. The Germans were at least twelve to one, but our men
held their own, fighting as I have never seen men fight before. We had
a great leader in Major Robb. He led the men splendidly. Lieutenant
Twist, one of our number, tried to advance with a company up the hill,
but he was quickly shot down. I saw him shot, and although the shrapnel
was flying and bullets were coming like rain, I made a dash and brought
him back to the trenches. Then I saw Private Howson, a Darlington chap,
fall, and I succeeded in bringing him from the firing line. The poor
chap was shot through the neck and the shoulders, though I believe he
is still living. I then went back and succeeded in bringing Private
Maughan. My last journey was the most difficult of all. I had to travel
over the crest of the hill to within 30 yards of the German trenches,
and how I escaped being killed I really do not know. I crawled on my
stomach and got along as best I could, and I am glad to say that I
succeeded in bringing Major Robb back right, as it were, from the very
noses of the Germans. It was a hard job to get him, and in my effort I
was shot through the back and fell."
A Royal Fusilier wrote: "While we were chatting and smoking, German
shrapnel began to burst on the trees above us.... I did not think I
should see home again, but we were all cool enough.... Eight volunteers
were wanted to cross the bridge and tell a section in danger of being
captured to retire. I made one volunteer, and my chum another. We were
walking between some railway trucks when bullets began to whistle
through; one could almost feel the heat of some of them, so close did
they pass. We lay down for a minute, and I said, 'We must get there
somehow.' Four stayed there and four of us went on. Directly we got up
more bullets came over, and one poor fellow got one in the neck. We
left him in the care of the other four and made a run for it. We got
there and warned the section. Coming back we had to keep running and
lying down alternately, but got back in the end with only one wounded."
CHAPTER XI
Brothers-in-Arms
Whatever Christians who profess more do in reference to brotherly love,
British soldiers are real brothers to each other on active service.
Each man seems to say, "He that sheds his blood with me, shall be my
brother."
The following is from a sergeant's letter in _The Evening News_: "Out
there sublime deeds of heroism are being performed every day by common
soldiers whom the ordinary 'civvy' would pass by with contempt in times
of peace. After Cambrai I was thrown a lot with a wild Glasgow Irishman
belonging to the Royal Scots and a wounded man of the Dorsets. We took
refuge in a farmhouse, and one day the Irishman had the ill-luck of
showing himself to a party of Germans on the prowl. He took it into
his head that he hadn't played the game by bringing the Germans down
on us, and after reporting their presence he said he was going out
just for a bit of a dander. He had not an earthly chance of escaping.
Before he left I told him so, but that didn't weigh with him at all.
'It's like this,' he said, 'you've got a missus and children to look
after. So's that chap in the corner. I'm as bad as they make 'em, and
nobody will be a thraneen the poorer if I'm shot this very minute. It
was my carelessness in going about that gave us away to the Germans.
They don't know there's anybody here but me, and if I rush out they'll
get me and go off content. He walked coolly out to the front gate, and
made a rush into the fields to the left. The Germans saw him and fired.
He fell riddled with bullets, and they went after him. They must have
thought that he was the only man in the house, for they didn't come
back, and we lay there for three days until we managed to get back to
our own lines."
Another man also thought of wife and kids. "In a night fight one of
the Gloucesters had his rifle knocked out of his hand, and a big
German lunged at him with a bayonet. Quick as lightning one of his
mates sprang between him and the German, and received the thrust in
his chest. He died within an hour, and when they asked him why he did
it, his answer was, 'Oh, God, I couldn't help it. He's got a wife and
kids.'"
A corporal of the Bedfordshire Regiment wrote: "Near our trenches there
were a lot of wounded, and their cries for water were pitiful. In the
trenches was a quiet chap of the Engineers, who could stand it no
longer. He collected all the water bottles he could lay hold of, and
said he was going out. The air was thick with shell and rifle fire, and
to show yourself at all was to sign your death warrant. That chap knew
it as well as we did, but that was not going to stop him. He got to the
first man all right and gave him a swig from a bottle. No sooner did
he show himself than the Germans opened fire. After attending to the
first man he crawled along the ground to others until he was about a
quarter of a mile away from us. Then he stood up and zigzagged towards
another batch of wounded, but that was the end of him. The German fire
got hotter and hotter. He was hit badly, and with just a slight upward
fling of his arms he dropped to earth like the hero he was. Later he
was picked up with the wounded, but he was as dead as they make them
out here. The wounded men for whose sake he had risked and lost his
life thought a lot of him, and were greatly cut up at his death. One
of them who was hit so hard that he would never see another Sunday
said to me as we passed the Engineer chap, who lay with a smile on his
white face, and had more bullets in him than would set a battalion of
sharpshooters up in business for themselves, 'He was a rare good one,
he was. It's something worth living for to have seen a deed like that,
and now that I have seen it, I don't care what becomes of me.' That's
what we all felt about it."
One of the King's Royal Rifles told in a letter how a Highlander milked
a cow under rifle and shell fire to get something for his wounded
mates to drink when the water ran out. Also how a boy of the Connaught
Rangers rushed out of the trenches under heavy fire to an orchard near
by to get an apple for a wounded comrade who was suffering from thirst
and hunger. "He got the apple all right, but he got a German bullet or
two in him as well on the way back, and dropped dead within 50 feet of
the goal. The wounded chap had his apple brought in after an artillery
man had been wounded in getting at it. I hope he valued it, for it was
the costliest apple I ever heard tell of bar one, and that was a long
time ago."
Sergeant J. Rolfe, 2nd Battalion King's Royal Rifles, wrote: "When
I got hit, I couldn't say how long I lay there, but a chum of mine,
Tommy Quaife, under a perfect hail of bullets and shells, dragged me to
safety, and said, 'Cheer up, Smiler, here's a fag. I'm going back for
Sandy' (his other chum). He never got there. Poor Tommy got a piece of
shell and was buried the same night."
In a lancer charge near Cambrai a man dropped a letter. It had arrived
just as the order was given to mount, and he had not had time to read
it. Even in mid-charge a comrade saw it fall out of his tunic and
returned it at great risk.
Two Highlanders were carrying a wounded comrade, and he dropped a
stick of chocolate, a thing of which only soldiers in the field under
trying conditions know the value. He fretted and worried about it, and
at last one of his chums volunteered to go back for it to where it
had been dropped, not more than two hundred yards away. He never came
back. In full view of his companions he was hit by a bullet and fell
dead. There was another case where a religious Dublin Fusilier lost his
life because he stayed just long enough to cross the hands of a dead
comrade, and say a prayer for his departed soul.
One night a man of the West Yorkshire Regiment took off his coat
and wrapped it around a wounded chum who had to lie there until the
ambulance took him away. All that night he stood in the trenches in his
shirt-sleeves, with water up to his waist, and the temperature near to
freezing point, quietly returning the German fire. On the afternoon of
the following day he had acute pneumonia.
The following was related by a British Hussar. After the charge of the
Highlanders on the German heavy guns near Hanbourdin the Hussar was
sent with a message to the base. On the way he encountered a Seaforth
Highlander going in the same direction. Something in the man's set
face prompted the question: "Are you hurt?" "Aye, a sma' matter," was
the reply. The man's arm was shattered from shoulder to elbow. "Are you
going to sick bay?" said the cavalryman. "It's a mile and a half away.
Get on my gee." "No, no," said the Scot, "I'll just walk, you'll find
many worse hit than me."
Private D.F. Gilmore, of the Seaforth Highlanders, told this in a
letter: "It was on the Aisne. We had had a hard day. Our casualties
were greater than I care to tell. I was with a fatigue party collecting
the wounded and burying the dead. We came on a sergeant of artillery
and about twenty wounded men. The sergeant was nearest and I signed
to my mates to take him first. He waved us away. 'I can wait. Get the
others first. They're much worse.' That was what he said. We persisted.
He got angry. 'I'm your superior in rank, and if you disobey I'll
report you for insubordination.' That settled it, so we started on the
others. We got the last away, and came back for the sergeant. He was
stone dead. Unknown to us he had been bleeding to death. He must have
known that when he made us attend to the others. Had he been taken at
first his life would have been saved."
The night before the beginning of the same battle of the Aisne, two
men of the Middlesex Regiment had a disagreement and came to blows. The
conqueror was struck with shrapnel next day, and the man who was beaten
endangered his life to save him. When he had nearly dragged him to a
place of safety a shell killed both men.
A stretcher party came on seven men wounded. Only six could be taken,
and the problem was to select the seventh. One man solved it. "I'm
the worst case," he said. "If you take me I'll probably die on the
way. These other chaps will all pull through and make good soldiers
yet. Leave me. You won't? Well, if you try to take me I'll resist, and
that'll be the end of me, so you'd better let me have my way." What
could they do but let him have his way? And so he was left. An hour
later they came back, and he was dead.
"There were two men of the Camerons who had been chums since their
boyhood" (writes Sergeant R. Duffy, Rifle Brigade). "They had 'listed
together, and been in I don't know how many scrapes and 'scraps' side
by side. In the fighting around Ypres one night one of them got hit in
a bayonet fight. The regiment had to return to the trenches, leaving
the wounded to take their chance for the time being out in the cold.
The wounded man's chum caught sight of him lying in the roadway with
the pallor of death in his face, and his teeth chattering with the
terrible cold. 'My God, Jock,' he exclaimed, 'is it you that's lying
there? A canna' lee ye, so a'll stay wi' ye tae the morn.' The wounded
man wouldn't hear of it, but his chum meant to have his way, and he got
it. Next morning we had a look for the two, and we found them side by
side--both dead. They had crept together under their greatcoats to keep
warm, but death had found them all the same."
A cavalry sergeant, though he had got three wounds, went to a badly
wounded corporal who was shouting to be taken out of the way of the
line. The wounded sergeant bound up the other man's wound, set him
on his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then the sergeant
limped along on foot as best he could after his regiment to fight again.
W. Roberts, 1st Life Guards, wrote to a friend how his regiment gave
timely and thoughtful assistance: "We were sent to help the Queen's
Regiment one day. It was just getting dark, and it had been raining
for three days without stopping. We were only just in time, and they
had given up all hope. The Germans were just about to charge them, but
when they saw us they made it 'as you were.' We helped to carry out the
wounded. It was awful. They were nearly wiped out; chaps with arms and
faces smashed. It was terrible. The trenches were full of water, and
the men were blue with cold, and as our chaps went to carry out the
dead and wounded the Germans fired on them. We made them as comfortable
as we could, making them fags and giving them tea, and we took their
places in the trenches that night."
How these acts should rebuke us when in time of peace we refuse to do
small deeds of kindness!
When allies do not pull well together there is trouble, but happily
this is not the case in the present war. There is a fine fraternity
between the French and the British soldier. The French calls out,
"Bravo, Tommie!" and his British brother replies, "Right, O!" It is not
a long conversation and there is no dangerous discussion, but it shows
good will.
Once at least French and British soldiers were play-fellows. Seven of
our men having lost their regiment joined a French one for the time
being. They taught the French how to play football, and often played
with them when under fire.
One of the Royal Lancasters said in a letter that the sign manual of
friendship between the French and the British soldier is a cross on the
throat indicating their wish to the Kaiser. "The French Tommies copy us
a lot, and they like, when they have time, to stroll into our lines for
a chat or a game. They are fond of the jam served to us and exchange
things for it."
On one occasion the appreciation of the French soldiers was even
embarrassing. They had seen the Irish Guards put to flight great
numbers of the "Kaiser's crush," and when the regiment marched back
the French stood up in their trenches and roared applause. The Irish
Guards, who only became a regiment after the Boer war, felt shy about
this French fuss. They did not like the idea that it was their first
time in action, and that their battle honour was brand new.
CHAPTER XII
Under Fire
Asked what it feels like to be under fire, a soldier replied: "It makes
you sweat waiting for the shock of getting hit. It is the suspense that
tries. The first few weeks at the war are awful. You awaken in your
sleep and think you are being fired at. Not that the German infantry
are good marksmen (the artillery are). Why, the other day I noticed a
chap who had been aiming in my direction for several minutes, and none
of ours had been touched. I stood up and said to a chum: 'Watch that
chap. I bet you he won't hit me.' And he didn't, for I heard the bullet
whistle by several inches wide."
The feeling of waiting to go under fire is thus described: "We were
to hold the trenches at all costs, and things began to take a serious
turn. It was then that I and my chum took photographs we had with us
from our pockets and looked long into the faces of those we had left at
home. Then we took out our small books and made our wills, and then
waited."
A private of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment wrote: "There were many
field artillery drivers with spare horses behind a shed, and one was
asleep in front of me on a truss of hay. A shell from a 'Black Maria'
came over the corner of the shed and dropped not more than 8 feet from
me. It killed the poor driver and blew one horse up and the other
horses into a heap. It seemed to me as if I had been suddenly thrown
into a white hot furnace, and a big metallic door slammed on me. I was
dazed for five minutes and shaky all day, but the feeling soon wore
off. It is wonderful how soon you get over these things. These 'Black
Maria' shells make a screaming noise, followed by a terrific explosion,
but the effect is purely local, except for splinters flying. Next day
we came under rifle fire as well as big gun fire. Then we knew it. It
was not a pleasant sight to see men falling around you screaming. I
remember saying to a chap alongside of me, 'I wouldn't give twopence
for my chance.'"
"It's a curious sort of feeling," another man wrote, "to be under fire.
It's--well you feel that war is a really dangerous thing."
Much of course depends upon the soldier's temperament. An officer had
the moral courage to write in a letter, "I have been under fire a few
times now, and like it less every time."
An Indian soldier gave the impression of himself and of his fellows:
"The shell fire was a bit troublesome at first, because it was far
worse than anything we had ever experienced in frontier fighting, and
few of us had had any experience of being under fire. We soon got used
to it, and it didn't trouble us more than thunder. The rifle fire
wasn't so bad, for the Germans aren't very good shots. Still, it was
annoying to us to have to lie still under it when we like to be getting
to close grips."
An officer described a retreat under fire as follows: "My platoon
(fifty men) was some 200 yards behind the firing line to start with.
I was soon ordered to bring them up, which was not a too comfortable
job, as shells were bursting by now just in front of us. However, I
shouted to the men, telling them to go on, and saying that they would
be safer further up the hill. Then the battery doing most of the firing
on us stopped for a moment to reload and resight, and I got the men
on a hundred yards, and then the shells began bursting like hail just
where we had come from. Then they kept altering their range from time
to time, and you could sometimes hear the shot and shell come down only
a few yards off, and of course you could always hear the shell singing
through the air, and sometimes felt the breath of them. Around me the
men behaved splendidly. (The whole regiment has been congratulated on
its having done well.) We lay there in the potato crop like partridges.
I think we were all too petrified to move; but where we were we lay
just below the crest of a ridge waiting to crawl up to see to fire
if any German infantry came along. We lay under that shell fire for
three hours, and I think that none of us will ever forget the feeling
of thinking that the next moment we might be dead--perhaps blown to
atoms. I kept wondering what it was going to feel like to be dead,
and all sorts of little things that I had done, and places I had been
to years ago and had quite forgotten, kept passing through my mind. I
have often heard of this happening to a drowning man, but have never
experienced it before, and don't want to again! I think you get so
strung up that your nerves get into an abnormal condition. My brain
seemed extraordinarily cool and collected, which I was proud of and am
still; but I looked at my hands and saw them moving and twisting in an
extraordinary way, as if they didn't belong to me, and when I tried to
use my field-glasses to spy at the Germans, it was as much as I could
do with the greatest effort to get them up to my eyes, and then I could
scarcely see. When the order to retire came our company got it late.
I told my platoon--those who were left--to double back and assemble
behind a house in a road behind us. I stopped behind to collect
stragglers and to carry a couple of wounded into the house, where the
doctor was seeing to them; and I believe I was the last to leave. By
this time the bullets had begun to sing all round us, and the German
infantry were getting close, so it was high time to clear out. I and a
last party of five climbed up a pear tree and over a garden wall, and
so, creeping along with the bullets now flying all round, we got over
another wall and so up a path exposed for a short way. We ran along
this, and I remember, as an instance of the stupid things one does in
moments of excitement, my little hair-brush jumped out suddenly from my
haversack, and I ran back five or six yards to pick it up, and risked a
life for a hair-brush! I found subsequently two holes in my haversack
where a bullet had passed through, just grazing my clothes, and it may
have been then that it went through."
I did not myself know Mr. Geoffrey Pearson, Lord Cowdray's son, but a
friend of his told me so much about him that it was with sorrow that
I read the dramatic story of his death. He and a sergeant-major were
acting as motor-cyclists with the motor transport, and what happened
is thus told by the sergeant-major: "We were going along a straight
piece of road, with open country on either side, and were letting
our machines out for all they were worth. We were alone. Suddenly,
without the least warning, we seemed to ride into a perfect hailstorm
of bullets which came over from somewhere on our left. Ahead of us the
road ran into a little wood. 'Come on, we'll ride for it,' I said,
and we dashed through in safety. Hardly had we entered the wood belt,
however, than we rode into a group of German cavalry--about fifty of
them--scattered about on either side of the road. They immediately
fired at us. We saw the game was up, as there was no getting away
from them at all, so we tumbled off our bikes, put up our hands, and
surrendered. The Germans treated us shamefully. They gave us nothing
to eat, and taunted and jeered at us at every opportunity. That night
we spent in the open, lying on the roadside between two men. We had no
overcoats, and it was most bitterly cold. I think I have never been so
cold in my life as I was that night. The Germans took us on with them
on their advance against the French. They made us go into the trenches
with them. We were thrust in the line with the rest under a terrific
fire from the French guns and infantry. We decided to make a dash for
it. The Germans were all very busy with the fight, and we were able to
crawl away unperceived out of the trenches and through the long grass.
Moreover, when we were about 200 or 300 yards away the Germans saw us,
and a number of them immediately opened fire. Pearson was shot through
the head. We were under fire with a vengeance."
Speaking of a particularly fierce fight a Gordon Highlander said that
it might have been a sham one the way the Gordons took it. In the
thick of it they sang Harry Lauder's latest. Those who could not sing
whistled, and those who could not whistle talked about football, and
joked with each other.
One of the West Kent Regiment speaking of the German artillery fire
said that the din seems to hit you. You feel as if your ears would
burst, and the teeth fall out of your head. He thought little, however,
of the enemy's infantry. "If we fired as badly as they do we would be
put in jail."
A Dublin Fusilier said that while the shells shrieked blue murder over
their heads they smoked cigarettes, sang about the girls, and were as
cool as Liffy water. "If I should arrive home safe I think I shall get
a job as doorkeeper at an oyster shop, as I am having a course of shell
dodging."
Corporal F. Leeming, R.F.A., wrote to his wife: "I am all right, but
still have to keep ducking every time a 'messenger from the Kaiser'
comes whistling round. It is not exactly like throwing eggs about
when their shells burst. They make a hole in the ground about 20 feet
across, and the noise is terrible and nerve-racking. You feel pretty
shaky at first."
According to Private Thomas Mulholland, Highland Light Infantry, shells
were not as much appreciated at a dance as ladies would have been: "In
the trenches last week we held a dance, for want of something better
to do. Of course, the only partners were fellow-soldiers; but still
it was a change from the monotony of shell fire. Not that the shells
were absent, for just when we had settled down to enjoy the jigging the
enemy began to worry us with shrapnel. The shells burst all around,
and one burst in the middle of a little group of men giving a Gaelic
four-hand reel. Every man was killed. After that we thought it best to
stop."
Afternoon tea under fire was like this: "The mugs were passed round
with the biscuits and the 'bully' as best they could by the mess
orderlies, but it was hard work messing without getting more than we
wanted. My next-door neighbour, so to speak, got a shrapnel bullet
in his tin, and another two doors off had his biscuit shot out of
his hand. Private Plant had a cigarette shot out of his mouth, and a
comrade got a bullet into his tin of bully beef. 'It saves the trouble
of opening it,' was his remark."
One day a shell smashed a breakfast porridge pot, and another scattered
a dinner of stew. "We cursed more about that stew than if we had been
hit ourselves."
"It beats Banagher," said a jocular private in the Royal Irish, "how
these Germans always disturb us at meal times. I suppose it's just the
smell of the bacon that they're after. They seem to look for a blooming
Ritz Hotel in the firing line."
Men can even sleep when under fire. "It is a most extraordinary thing,"
said an officer to _The Daily Telegraph_ special correspondent, "to
see soldiers lying on their straw soundly asleep when German shells
are bursting all round them. Men keep on snoring even after a shell
has burst within 5 or 6 yards over their heads and half filled their
trenches with fresh earth. One gets so used to the firing, that, though
it may sound incredible, it soon becomes far less noticeable than city
traffic, for instance."
CHAPTER XIII
"I've Got It"
Sometimes a man after being under fire for a considerable time without
being wounded begins to fancy that he has a charmed life and that he
is "not for it," as soldiers say. Still, if he is to be a billet for a
bullet the bullet will in its own time find him out. Then, he who has
been seeing comrades falling on either side of him will find this a
more personal matter, an affair of his only. When the end comes to a
poor fellow he is generally gone to "another place" before he knows he
is dead--as an Irish soldier said.
What does the average soldier say or do when wounded, how does he take
it? He usually remarks casually and quietly, "I've got it," or "I'm
hit." Men speak and act differently according to temperament, according
to moral and physical condition. Some as they roll over give a groan
and a cry to mother or wife. Some pray, some curse. An officer said,
"I'm done for," but immediately thinking of his men told them to lie
down. A soldier when hit said, "I've got a ticket through. I'm put out
of mess," but it was not as bad as that. Another fell and said to a
chum: "Good-bye, old man. I'm done for. Tell poor old dad I died at the
front. I began a letter to him; you finish it."
Sometimes a soldier is too excited to feel a wound until the fight is
over. A man wrote in a letter the following when describing the battle
of Mons: "When the Germans attacked us we were singing 'Hitchy Koo.'
Before we were half through the chorus the man next to me got a wound
in the upper part of his arm. He sang the chorus to the finish, and
did not seem to know he was hit till a comrade on the other side said,
'Don't you think you had better have it bound up? It's beginning to
make a mess.'"
A sergeant sent back to a hospital in England said: "It was at Ypres
I was shot. The bullet struck me in the elbow. I felt no pain there
and no sensation of any kind, except in the tops of the fingers, which
began to stiffen and freeze. But even then I didn't know I was shot.
Five or ten minutes afterwards my coat began to stick to my arm, thick
blood came down my sleeve, and I realised that I was wounded."
One man, shot through the arm, felt "only a bit of a sting, nothing
particular. Just like a needle going into me. I thought it was nothing
till my rifle dropped out of my hand and my arm fell." That is the
feeling of a clean bullet wound. Shrapnel, however, "hurts pretty
badly."
This is how another man in a letter described being hit: "I didn't know
what had happened at the time, but afterwards I found out that a bullet
had entered my shoulder, grazed my spine, and lodged pretty firmly in
the back of my neck. 'Are you wounded, mate?' asked a corporal who
came up to me. 'Looks like it,' I replied, pointing to my shoulder.
With that he ripped up the sleeve of my tunic, and had just bound up
my wound when a shell struck him full in the back, and he fell forward
dead without a word."
A man when hit in the hand jumped out of the trench and shouted to the
man who had shot him to come and fight him. "It was hailing lead, so he
was pulled back into the trench and told that he was rather amusing,
but silly."
Two men are resting in a trench but not lying low enough. One is
munching a biscuit, and the other is flicking small pebbles at him.
A particularly sharp stone, as the man with the biscuit fancies,
strikes him on the neck. He leaps round and demands indignantly, "Say,
Bill, did you chuck that stone at me?" Bill denies the charge, and,
perceiving the occasion for it, rejoins, "Why, mate, you're wounded."
He had got a bullet and not a harmless pebble.
Firing in battle is now carried on at such long distances that if one
is in the neighbourhood at all he may not be able to keep out of it.
This was once the case with me in China. A hail of bullets came round
us and we did not know from whence it came. A man on the right of me
fell and said, "I'm hit," and another on the left did the same. As no
enemy was visible I thought that it was a grim joke until I saw blood
spurting up.
Writing in a letter of a second occasion on which he was wounded, a
soldier said: "This makes twice their shrapnel has pipped me. If they
do it again I shall say, 'I ain't going to play any more! You are too
rough!'"
Another man was hit in the right arm when drinking tea. He carefully
transferred the pannikin to the left hand, and finished his tea!
When a bullet got him an Irishman, exclaiming "The brutes have hit me,"
fired his rifle and said, "That's one back ter them." Then he got hit
again and observed, "Be jabers, if they haven't struck me the second
toime." A third hit was too much and he expostulated, "That's number
three. The blackguards might leave a party alone after they've hit him
wance."
With a machine gun a Highlander at a bridge over the river Marne kept
back a column of Germans until reliefs came up. When he fell dead and
was carried away thirty bullet wounds were found on his body.
It is strange to hear soldiers at home talking of soldiers who have
gone to war, and have been wounded or died. They seldom express pity
for them, nor do they feel much. And the want of what might seem a
natural sensation is really very fine, for it is due to a conviction
that a man has to do his duty, and that to die in the performance of it
covers him with honour.
Strange, too, is the way soldiers can joke when hit themselves, or when
someone near them has "got it." In one of the Highland regiments there
was a very fat pipe major. His legs were like barrels, and when he was
shot in them he said, "Weel, I wonder they didna do that before."
Two chums were discussing the relative values of their birthplaces. The
Cockney was evidently having the best of the argument, when a shrapnel
shell burst above them and the Londoner received a bullet in each leg,
while the Birmingham man escaped unhurt.
"I should think you'll give way now!" said the man from Birmingham.
"Why?" asked the Cockney.
"Well, you haven't a leg to stand on," was the reply.
After a little experience of campaigning in France a young officer
wrote, "I tried to like war, having heard and read so many fine things
about it, but I could not; it is just beastly." Any one who talks of
the glory of war should be invited to walk over a battle field when the
fighting has ceased. He will see those who have "got it" from shells or
bullets writhing in agony, he will hear many of them asking someone for
the love of God to kill them and put them out of their misery.
A member of the Royal Army Medical Corps gives the following vivid
picture of a battlefield after the guns had ceased firing:
"The last fight I was in the carnage had been fearful, and dead and
dying of both sides were piled together. In one corner you could see
a British Tommy with a bad wound lying with his head pillowed on the
shoulder of a dying German, while a Frenchman near by was doing his
best to cheer them up, and emptying his pockets in quest of some
treasures to soothe the last moments of the other two. Close by a
British Guardsman was propped against a tree smoking a cigarette and
gazing intently at a photograph. Near to him was a wounded Frenchman,
holding a little glass in one hand while he tried to curl a straggling
moustache with the other. Further along I saw two men, a French
artilleryman and a British rifleman, quietly playing cards while
awaiting their turn to be taken to hospital. Next to them was a man
of the Cameron Highlanders, with both legs shattered, munching a stick
of chocolate, and trying to hide the twitching of his face as the pain
racked his body. I approached another Highlander. 'It's ma birthday
the day,' was what he said, with a wry face, and before the words were
right out of his mouth he was dead. Under a little cluster of trees we
find a party of wounded Germans, English, and French men. They were
quietly praying for what they believed to be the last time on earth.
Beyond them a Seaforth Highlander was lying with his Testament open at
the story of the Crucifixion. He was beyond human aid."
How much more than "beastly" for the wounded must be the waiting for
the stretcher-bearers to pick them up and the fear that they may not be
able to come or that they may not find them? What torture for the mind
there is in the uncertainty!
The next time we are impatient because a train is unpunctual or the
dinner a few moments late, we should think of those who wait on
battlefields, sometimes in danger of getting more wounds and sometimes
exposed to great cold and falling rain or snow.
CHAPTER XIV
From Fear to Heroism
A common topic in letters from the front is the feeling of the writers
on going into battle. They were "half mad with excitement"; they "did
not know what they were doing"; they felt "hot and cold, and, as it
were, stuck to the ground." One remarks, "If anyone tells you that he
is not afraid in his first battle, you may be sure that he is a liar."
In a ball-room a girl was overheard asking an officer, who has shown
himself brave above the average, what he felt when he went into his
first engagement. "My dear young lady," he replied, "I felt like making
for the nearest hedge that would hide me comfortably."
The South African soldier and statesman, Louis Botha, was asked what
it was like to be on a field of battle, and whether men rise to the
occasion. "That depends," he said "on the spirit of the man."
Speaking of the science of slaughter, of which the present war has been
an exhibition, a soldier remarked: "I don't believe there is a man
living who, when first interviewing an 11in. howitzer shell, is not
pink with funk. After the first ten, one gets quite used to them, but
really, they are terrible!"
When Lord Clive was an ensign, in his first battle he felt almost
unable to stand up from fear. Seeing this the captain of his company
told him that he used to be that way himself, and then took him by the
hand and walked with him where the firing was heaviest. This reassured
him, and the great general used to say that no man ever performed a
better service for another than this captain did for him.
The bravest soldiers are often the most nervous when they first face an
enemy, just as the most eloquent orators are when they begin to speak.
This is because men fight and are eloquent by means of nerve power.
Each must warm to the work before he gets his nerves under control, and
then he astonishes the world, but no one so much as himself.
There is no man so brave as the man who is afraid of being afraid.
An officer had a confidential talk a day or two before a battle that
was imminent with a subaltern that had just come out. He was delicate
looking and nervous. He said that he was a born coward and that he
would disgrace himself in his first battle. "I saw him just before the
next fight began, looking pitifully white and haggard, and I never saw
him again; but I heard that he had fought like a hero, and that he had
lost his life in an effort to save one of his men."
"If one did not know you, Colonel," said a subaltern, "one would say
you were afraid." "Boy," was the answer, "if you were half as much
afraid as I am you would run away."
Shakespeare represents a hero thus speaking to his body before a battle
begins:
"Thou tremblest, my poor body, but if thou didst know
Where I will bring you before the day is over
Thou wouldst tremble much more."
This was related by a sergeant of the York and Lancaster Regiment:
"Every soldier knows that the first experience of being under fire is
terribly unnerving, and the best of men will admit that at times they
are tempted to run away. There was a young lad of the Worcestershire
Regiment who had this feeling very badly, but he made up his mind that
he would conquer it, and this is what he did. He made it a practice
to go out of the trench and expose himself to German fire for a bit
every day. The poor boy trembled like a leaf, but his soul was bigger
than the weak little body holding it, and he went through the terrible
ordeal for a week. On the eighth day he was fatally hit. His last words
to me were, 'They can't say I was a coward, can they?'"
On one occasion a subaltern of the Munsters was so little afraid of a
fight with the Germans that his only fear was that they would not come
on. The regiment was waiting for a night attack, and waited in vain.
Hour after hour passed. The men in the trenches who had been warm with
excitement began to feel cold again. Yet still no Germans came. At last
the subaltern, who had been walking incessantly up and down behind
the trenches like a caged lion, could stand it no longer. He glanced
anxiously for the twenty-fifth time at his wrist watch and muttered, "I
do hope nothing has happened to them!"
A young soldier wrote: "In the first action I went silly and cried
for mother ten times, but all of a sudden courage loomed up in me. I
thought I could not have enough nerve to stick a man with a bayonet,
but during a charge one goes mad."
Much courage is needed to charge with a bayonet, or to face a bayonet
charge. Young soldiers sometimes get a sinking sensation when the order
to charge is given. It is horrid putting a bayonet into a man, and it
is sometimes difficult to get it out of him. "It was his life or mine,"
said a soldier describing his first battle, "and I ran the bayonet
through him. In war mercy is only for the merciful. It is awful killing
big, fine men who have done us no harm; but we do it or they will do it
to us."
Private G. Glew, of the Coldstream Guards, wrote: "Once I had my
bayonet in a German's shoulder, and could not get it out sharp enough
to keep an eye on the German that was behind me with his bayonet ready
for me, when the captain drew his revolver and shot him, saving my
life."
Soldiers do not like to talk about what they feel during a battle, but
one man did tell a newspaper interviewer that "the sensation of killing
a man is not nice. Once done, however, your blood grows hot, and you
seem to see all red. A passion unknown in other moments possesses you.
The more of your chums you see knocked down, the madder you seem to
fight. One gets a kind of bloodthirsty feeling which it is impossible
to quell."
Soldiers are nerved to scorn danger from different motives. The highest
motive of all is when the "gallant private" who cannot hope for much
professional advancement practises his "heroism obscure" simply from a
sense of duty. Sometimes ambition urges him on, nor shall we blame him.
A driver in the artillery wrote in a letter home: "We have got some
brave men in the British Army, but I saw more than one kneel down and
say his prayers the night before a battle was expected." How strange
that this man should think that there is any inconsistency between
praying and being courageous! Surely the best way of getting rid of
fear is to realise by prayer the presence with us of a Higher Power. In
several letters men wrote, after describing some danger that they had
to face, "I prayed then as I never did before in my life."
A young officer once told me that there was no service like the Holy
Communion for men who had to face death. He said he felt "square"
afterwards.
Religion under fire is not apologetic; it is quietly dominant. Shadow,
darkness and doubt vanish. "My God" is the call of the heart, and a
sincere call.
CHAPTER XV
Uncommon Combats
The following curious bit of war-to-the-knife was related by a sergeant
to a newspaper correspondent: "I and four other wounded men got
together and hid under some wheat sheaves. Presently one man put out
his head to see if the coast was clear, and was spotted by a German
soldier. The fellow came towards us, and, grasping his rifle by the
barrel, was about to batter out my mate's brains, when I whipped this
out (producing a formidable jack-knife) and, springing up, jabbed it
into his throat. See, the blood stains are still there. He went down
and I with him, and by the time I had finished with this little weapon
he was done for. I kept at his windpipe so as not to give him a chance
to bawl for assistance. We managed to crawl or limp for some distance
in the wake of the army until we came upon Lieutenant B.M.B. Bateman,
of the Royal Field Artillery. He helped us to safety."
A knock-out blow was thus described by a young Frenchman, attached
to the Interpreters' Corps: "Last week my parents had a pleasant
surprise. I took home to supper one of your brave Tommies. I met
him as interpreter, and he told me his story. He fought the Boches
(nickname for the Germans) from the beginning of the war, and was at
Mons, Charleroi, Landrecies, Soissons, and the battles of the Marne and
Aisne. On October 15th he was captured by a German patrol, composed
of six Uhlans, and was disarmed, but kept his horse. Three of the six
went to get some tea, one went for an interpreter, and two watched
Tommy. After a short time one of the two lay down on the grass, while
the other stood by the side of their prisoner. Tommy was still for a
quarter of an hour, and he then suddenly gave the Boche an 'uppercut,'
and he fell exhausted. The other Boche got up and went for him, but the
English Tommy knocked him out with the first blow, and jumped on his
horse. The other Boches had heard the struggle, and as he rode off the
bullets whistled past his ears, but luckily he escaped. I asked him if
he was a boxer, and he answered me, 'Rather! I matched with my cousin
Fred Welsh, who is now a world champion in the light weights!'"
Corporal Isherwood, 2nd Manchester Regiment, when he came home wounded,
told how a boy led his regiment in a bayonet charge. "On October 20th
the Germans were all around us, and their fire enfiladed our trenches.
First our lieutenant was wounded, then the sergeant, and we were left
without a single officer to command the platoon. We were wondering what
to do when a drummer-boy, of eighteen, the baby of the company, threw
up his cap, and with a ringing cheer yelled: 'Fix bayonets, lads.'
We did, and charged the advancing Germans. The boy was in the act of
bayoneting a German when the latter shouted, 'For God's sake, don't
stick me.' 'It is too late,' returned the youngster, 'it is through
you.'"
Corporal Gleeson, of the Coldstream Guards, tells this story:
"At Soissons our attention was attracted by a young lad of the
Connaught Rangers. He was fighting single-handed against seven Germans.
He was doing nicely, but just as he was withdrawing his bayonet from
the fifth German to go down, one of them caught him, and he dropped. We
fought our way over, and finished the other two, and just managed to
catch the poor lad before his last breath went. 'You saw it,' he said,
and we said we had. 'You think I did my best, and they won't blame me
because seven was too many for me? I'm only a boy, and they were such
big chaps.' We told him if any man said or hinted he hadn't done his
best, and more, there wasn't one of us wouldn't kill him. He smiled
ever so sweetly, and then he died. We drew our coat sleeves across our
eyes to stop or hide the blinding tears that came in spite of us."
The London Scottish Regiment gave a good account of themselves in their
first fight, and showed that for pluck and dash this "crack" regiment
of Territorials--the first Territorial corps to take their place in the
firing line--has nothing to learn from even the pick of the Regulars.
They were ordered to dislodge from an important position a large body
of the much vaunted Bavarian troops, and they did it in a way that Sir
John French highly praised.
On one occasion the Kaiser, when addressing a Bavarian corps, said, "I
want the Bavarians to meet the British--just once!" The Bavarians have
met the British, represented by the London Scottish, "just once," and
it was once too often for them.
Before the war the Germans used to say that God had given British
soldiers long legs to run away with, and that men in kilts instead of
trousers could not fight. They know better now, and the London Scottish
greatly helped to enlighten them.
Shouting "Remember you're Scottish, give them the bayonet!" the London
Scottish rushed into the village they had to take. The defenders
resisted with great obstinacy, but at last they broke and fled.
On the next day the regiment had, without adequate cover, to hold a
position in face not only of infantry, but of artillery fire. At the
end of the day it was necessary to retire through a storm of lead, and
they marched back as steadily as on parade. "A perfect hell, it was,"
said an eye-witness, "and the wonder is that any of them got back."
The noise of bagpipes must be very terrifying to those who hear it for
the first time, and it seems on one occasion to have been instrumental
in winning for some men of another Scotch regiment a bloodless battle.
On a dark, rainy night the men making a detour of a field of roots
and, stalking their prey as silently as cats, got up to a position
from which the enemy had to be ejected. Then the Scots yelled, let off
rifles, rattled tins, and made the bagpipes speak up or rather squeal
up. The Germans were not soothed by the charms of this music, but were
seized with panic and fled.
Private S.A. Geary, R.A.M.C., wrote the following: "I was near the
trenches against which the Kaiser sent his crack Guard Corps, the
picked men of his army. Several times they got right up to the
trenches but were hurled back by the bayonet. One young officer did a
magnificent bit of work. Nothing could stop him; he jumped out of his
trench and yelled, 'Old England for ever! Follow me, lads.' With half
a company he dashed forward for quite 50 yards, and he and his men
simply performed miracles. As I watched them I was spellbound. They
seemed to possess superhuman strength. Caked from head to foot in mud
they presented the most fearful picture that could be imagined as they
attacked like wild beasts. The big Germans were rushing on four to one,
but they could not beat our fellows back. Those who were not killed or
wounded got away to shelter, and our boys returned to their trenches
cheering and shouting. Five minutes later the Germans came again and
again, but not a single man got within 10 yards of the trenches."
One of the Scots Greys, when invalided home, told of fighting with
frying-pans. "A dozen or so Germans who must have lost their way, came
stumbling into our camp after dark and received quite a warm welcome.
No guns were handy, but we grabbed hold of the first things handy,
and as it was supper-time there were plenty of domestic articles
which proved their worth. Dixey-tins and frying-pans, containing our
supper, were banged on their heads until they had had enough and gave
themselves up to our tender care."
A detachment of British cavalry, while playing water polo in the Oise,
suddenly spotted a patrol of German Uhlans. The British, naked as they
were, jumped on their horses and charged the enemy.
A private of the East Surrey Regiment recorded this grim experience:
"Suddenly, out of the darkness, a German appeared near, making straight
for me with a fixed bayonet. He came right above me as I stood in the
trench, and thrust his bayonet down towards my face. I just managed to
catch hold of it with my left hand pushing it from me, and at the same
time I thrust my own bayonet up into the German. His rifle went off as
he fell down on top of me, and the bullet went into my left hand."
It would seem from the following that a combat caused by love is very
severe. "There were two men of the Connaught Rangers who had a row
about a girl. Under ordinary circumstances they would have gone to
the back of the trenches and settled it with their fists, but the
regimental peacemaker intervened with a suggestion that struck both as
being reasonable. It was that instead of spoiling each other's beauty
they should take it out of the Germans, and let the girl decide which
was the better man of the two when the facts were put before her by a
comrade. They agreed, and that day they went into action with more than
usual eagerness. When it came to close quarters each of these chaps
fought all he knew against as many Germans as he could find to stand
up against him. We all knew what was behind it, and so did not go to
their assistance, but when the day was over everybody agreed that the
one who had downed eight Germans without getting a scratch was the
better man of the two. The girl thought otherwise, for she decided in
favour of the chap who got badly wounded in his fight with the sixth
German."
A corporal, named W.R. Smith, who has returned from the war, tells
of a chivalrous duel that took place between himself and one of the
enemy. On one occasion the corporal had got close to a German, and both
levelled their rifles. The corporal pulled the trigger first, but the
weapon jammed. The German, seeing what had happened, lowered his rifle
and offered to give him another chance. "Of course," says the corporal,
"there was nothing for it but to shake hands and walk away from each
other."
A Royal Engineer told this story in reference to the mole-like manner
of attacking the enemy's trenches: "We spent two days on a long mine
out towards the German lines, and just when we were getting to the
close of our job we heard pickaxes going as fast and hard as you like,
and then the wall of clay before us gave way, showing a party of
Germans at the same game! You never saw men more astonished in your
life, and they hadn't quite recovered from their shock when we pounced
on them. We had a pretty sharp scrap down there indeed, but we got the
best of it, though we had four of our chaps laid out. One German devil
was just caught in time with a fuse which he was going to apply with
the mad idea of blowing us all up!"
CHAPTER XVI
In the Trenches
"Punch" represents a soldier newly arrived at the front asking, "What's
the programme?" An old hand in the trenches answers, "Well, you lie
down in this water, and you get peppered all day and night, and you
have the time of your life!" The new arrival remarks, "Sounds like a
bit of all right; I'm on it!"
This was a joke, but it was very like what our soldiers seem to have
felt. One of them, for instance, in the Durham Light Infantry, wrote:
"We are in the thick of it, and enjoying it. We had an engagement on
Sunday, and managed to drive back the enemy. We are still at it, but as
happy as sand-boys. When I read in books of the coolness of men under
fire I thought somebody was blathering, but after eight weeks of it I
can say that no book has ever done justice to the coolness of British
soldiers under conditions that would try anybody. The night I was hit
we were just leaving the trenches for an interview with some Germans
who were trying some of their fancy tricks about our left. As we stood
up there was a ghastly shower of bullets and shells bursting all round.
Into it we had to go, and as we looked ahead one of our chaps said, 'I
think we'll have to get our great coats, boys; it's raining bullets
to-night, and we'll get wet to the skin if we're not careful.' Men of C
company started laughing, and then they took to singing, 'Put up your
umbrella when it comes on wet.' The song was taken up all along as we
went into the thick of it, and some of us were humming it as we dashed
into the German trenches. The Germans must have thought us a mad crew.
Another day there was an officer of the Cheshire Regiment who was a
bit of a cricketer in his day. He got uncomfortable after lying in the
trenches for so long, and he raised his leg in shifting his position.
He was hit in the thigh, and as he fell back all he said was, 'Out, by
George! leg-before-the-wicket, as the umpire would say, Better luck
next innings.'"
A trooper of the 15th Hussars wrote: "The horror of the nights spent in
the trenches in our soaking wet clothes will never leave me while life
lasts. The bare thought of it sends rheumatic pains all through me. We
minded that more than the German fire, but you must understand that
this isn't a grouse. Soldiers know that they have to put up with that
sort of thing in war time, and our officers were no better off. Some
of them were worse. There was an officer of the artillery who gave up
his blanket to a poor devil who had the shivers something awful. The
officer caught pneumonia and died a week later at the base hospital.
One night, when it was unusually wet and miserable, and some of us had
got all the humps that were ever seen on a camel's back, the assembly
sounded, and we were paraded at midnight. We fell in, glad to have
something to take us away from our miserable surroundings. Talk about
fight? Why, we fought like demons. We had all got the 'get at 'em'
fever."
A private of the West Kent Regiment wrote to his brother: "We have been
living the life of rabbits, for we burrowed ourselves in trenches at
----, and here we remained for over fifty hours. It was an exciting
and not unpleasant experience. The bursting of shells overhead was
continuous, and it became monotonous. One chap used to raise a cheer
each time shrapnel and shell spoke, making such remarks as 'There's
another rocket, John.'"
Another when hit in the knee calmly remarked, "I can't play now on
Christmas Day for Maidstone United."
"If all goes well we are going to have a football match to-morrow, as I
have selected a team from our lot to play the Borderers, who are always
swanking what they can do."
"There's a corporal of a regiment, that I won't name, that was a ticket
collector on the railway before the war, and when he was called back
to the colours he wasn't able to forget his old trade. One day he was
in charge of a patrol that surprised a party of Germans in a wood,
and, instead of the usual call to surrender, he sang out, 'Tickets,
please!' The Germans seemed to understand what he was driving at, for
they surrendered at once, but that chap will never hear the end of the
story, for when everything else ceases to amuse in the trenches you
have only to shout out 'Tickets, please!' to set everybody in fits."
An officer wrote: "We did seventy-eight hours on end in the trenches
last spell. This morning we had a football match. Football is the only
thing that takes the stiffness out of the men after being long in the
trenches. They are such sportsmen."
A Scottish Borderer described life in the trenches in the following
extract from a letter: "To kill time we played banker with cigarette
cards. We become rather like schoolboys over food. One of our mess
had a small tin of biscuits sent through the post yesterday; we all
crowed over it just like youngsters. One's joys are of the primitive
type when, like our ancestors, we turn to live in the fields and woods
again. A padre turned up yesterday, and at night (it was not safe to
begin earlier) we held a service at which a great number of our men
attended. We are a light-hearted lot and so are our officers. We dug
out for them a kind of a subterranean mess-room where they took their
meals. One fellow decorated it with a few cigarette cards and some
pictures he had cut out of a French paper. Their grub was not exactly
what they would get at the Cecil. A jollier and kinder lot of officers
you would not meet in a day's march. One officer who was well stocked
with cigarettes divided them among his men, and we were able to repay
him for his kindness by digging him out from his mess-room. A number
of shells tore up the turf, and the roof and sides collapsed like a
castle built of cards, burying him and two others. They were in a nice
pickle, but we got them out safe and sound. There are apple trees over
our trench, and we have to wait till the Germans knock them down for
us. You ought to see us scramble down our holes when we hear a shell
coming."
The experience of ten days in the trenches was thus described: "We dig
ourselves deeper and deeper into the earth, till we are completely
sheltered from above, coming out now and then, when things are quiet,
to cook and eat, making any moves that may be necessary under cover
of darkness. Ammunition, food, and drinking water are brought in by
night; the wounded are sent away to the hospital. We do not wash, we
do not change our clothes; we sleep at odd intervals whenever we can
get the chance, and daily we get more accustomed to our lot. It is
rather an odd existence. Little holes dug beneath the parapet just big
enough to sit in are our homes, with straw and perhaps a sack or two
for warmth. The cold is intense at night, and those good ladies who
have made us woollen caps and comforters have earned our thanks; also,
we are getting used to it. The coldest moments are those when there
is an alarm of a night attack, and we spring from our sleep to stand
shivering behind the parapet peering over the wall to see our enemies,
and firing at the flashes of their rifles. It is exciting. Every time
you put as much as your little finger over a trench there is a hail of
bullets."
A regiment was in trenches under fire and returning it. Two privates
noticed that the French interpreter was placed at a spot where the
trench was not wide enough to enable him to make proper use of his
rifle. "The Frenchman isn't comfortable," said one, and both left the
trench, spade in hand, knowing well that they were serving the enemy
as targets, dug out the trench in front of their French comrade, and
returned with unbroken calm to their own places and their rifles.
There was a humorous attempt to be homelike. A sergeant-major by
the name of Kenilworth put outside his bivouac "Kenilworth Lodge.
Tradesmen's entrance at the back. Beware of the dog." The dog was
picked up at Rouen.
Other shelters were named Hotel Cecil, Ritz Hotel, Billet Doux, Villa
De Dug Out, etc. Soldiers called the ordinary trenches, "Little wet
homes in a sewer."
Lieut. H.J.S. Shields, R.A.M.C., described his experiences in the
trenches in a letter to his father. "The Germans have a battery of four
guns six miles off, firing a 90lb. shell very accurately. It makes a
terrible bang, a miniature earthquake, and leaves a hole 4ft. deep and
20ft. in circumference. We had about 40 within 100 yards of us this
afternoon, the nearest about five yards off. Two of them have been
christened 'Weeping Willy' and 'Calamity Jane.' You can hear the shell
screaming towards you. With a cry of 'Here comes Jane!' all dive into
their respective holes. As a matter of fact, except for two occasions,
when it killed and wounded about eighty men altogether, it is less
dangerous than the shrapnel, which hails once or twice an hour. Two
medical officers have been killed up here, and two wounded; one had
his leg blown off by 'Jane.' I make a point of entirely disregarding
fire when it comes to the point of seeing to a wounded man, and pay no
attention to it. I don't believe precautions, beyond the ordinary one
of not exposing yourself more than can be helped, do any good, and I
am rather a fatalist. After all, I always think if one is killed doing
one's duty one can't help it, and it is the best way of coming to an
end. I mentally repeat that to myself when I am getting plugged at.
Somehow, I don't feel that God means me to get killed, though before I
came out I had a conviction I should not come back alive."
Quartermaster-Sergeant A.W. Harrison, 1st Battalion King's Liverpool
Regiment, wrote: "Of course we are ready to move forward at short
notice, but I am afraid the first three months have played havoc with
one's nerves. No description of mine could give you even a faint
impression of the present war. Can you imagine one living, day in day
out, for three or four weeks in a trench 6ft. deep by 3ft. wide, with
such cover as one can make with a few branches and a little straw,
not daring to leave it except for counter-attack, smuggling in your
food and ammunition under cover of darkness, and perhaps being shelled
hours at a time without seeing a single foe? Fancy not shaving nor even
washing for this length of time! If you can imagine all that you will
have just an inkling of what not only the private but the officer as
well has to undergo. Certainly there has never been less than three to
one against us. Yet, thank God! the Liverpools' line has never been
broken. Compliments from our General have been showered on us, but I
have seen very little mention of us in the British Press. Our men
laugh and say, 'What! Do you want jam on it?' They refer to the way
some of the favourite battalions have been lauded for events which have
been almost everyday occurrences with us."
A private of the Royal Scots wrote to his wife: "We were thirteen days
in the trenches at one place, where we only had to stand up a minute
to bring a battery of German artillery on the top of us, and for hours
we had to lie still or be blown to atoms. But never mind, the sun will
shine again."
A British soldier described in a letter a curious Sunday morning
occurrence: "While the shells were flying we heard the most impressive
music. There were strains like hymns, several hundred voices evidently
taking part. We listened, missing not a bar except when a shell fell
and deafened us for a moment, and then we discovered that it was a big
body of Germans holding some sort of Sabbath festival at the other
side of the little village, hardly two hundred yards away. One section
of them was firing shells; the other was singing hymns; and we were
playing nap!"
Sergeant Harlow, of the Connaught Rangers, wrote the following in a
letter: "When we were in the trenches a chum of mine, Johnnie Salmon,
said that we would be the better of a cup of tea. At the time there
was a heavy artillery fusilade from the enemy's lines. To make the
tea Salmon had to enter a deserted house close to the trenches. The
water in the kettle had reached boiling point, and he was about to
make the tea, when crash came a 'Jack Johnson' and whipped the roof
from the house. Fortunately Salmon when he extricated himself from the
debris found he was uninjured, and walking over to me he nonchalantly
remarked, 'The next time you want tea, Harlow, you can go and make it
yourself.' He was apparently more annoyed at having lost the tea than
startled at his narrow escape."
Rifleman Edward Strong wrote to his mother: "Since I served my
apprenticeship as a bootmaker I have had many strange jobs, but I don't
think I've ever had anything to equal my experience last week, when I
had to mend the boots of my chums in the trenches under fire. It was
exciting work. Just when I was heeling one boot a shell dropped near
by, and I had to run for it. When I came back the boot had disappeared,
and you can bet the chap it belonged to was very cross over it. I
offered to get him a new pair of boots from one of the Germans lying
dead over the way, but he wouldn't be pacified. As you may imagine,
there is great difficulty in getting leather for work of this kind, but
we solve it by collecting the boots from the dead and cutting them up
for making necessary repairs."
CHAPTER XVII
Not Downhearted
Frequently in the midst of a heavy German fire some British joker would
shout, "Are we downhearted?" and this would be loudly answered in the
negative by all British soldiers near him. Certainly that soldier was
not downhearted who pasted "Business as Usual" on a biscuit tin, and
stuck it on top of his trench for the enlightenment of the enemy.
The Hampshire Regiment, when advancing against the Germans, sang "Pop
goes the Weasel" as each shell burst.
Another regiment went into battle shouting, "Early doors this way.
Early doors ninepence." They were all as cheerful as if they were going
to a football match. One soldier said that he got his wound because
he became too excited to take cover when arguing about the relative
qualities of two famous boxers.
Two soldiers in the trenches when shells were bursting round them
played marbles with bullets from a shrapnel shell.
On one occasion our men, though being fired at by artillery, were
kicking about a football. A German aviator who observed this sent in a
report that the British forces were thoroughly disorganised and running
about their post in blind alarm.
Many men remarked casually in their letters that the letters were
written with bullets and shrapnel flying round. One soldier told his
mother that his letter was deferred "because the Germans were trying
to worry us," but added, "Do not believe half the stories about our
hardships. I haven't seen or heard of a man who made complaint of
anything. You can't expect a six-course dinner on active service, but
we get plenty to fight on."
A _Times_ correspondent told how he asked a wounded British soldier who
was sitting on the roadside if his wound hurt him. He replied, "It's
not that, but I'm blest if I haven't lost my pipe in that last charge."
The same correspondent saw a number of British soldiers come to Paris
after a "terrible tussle" with the enemy, and said that they looked as
if they had arrived from a day's holiday on Hampstead Heath, for though
dusty, they were trim and smiling, and seemed to be fit for anything.
The excitable Parisians admired the way Mr. Thomas Atkins took
everything as a matter of course and accommodated himself to
circumstances. They shrieked with admiration when they saw two
Highlanders with arms wounded dance a reel on a railway platform.
In another part of France a train full of British soldiers arrived. A
Frenchman said to some of them, "Bravo! You have done splendid work, I
hope that you will soon get home." "Home, sir?" replied a gunner, "why
we're just getting warmed up for work. It took us a few weeks to get
used to it, but now we love it and are as fit as fiddles."
"What is it like at the front?" a private of the Royal Irish Fusiliers
was asked in a hospital in England. "Well, now it's hard to tell you
that unless you've been there, but, faith, I'll make a good try,
just to oblige you. It's very little different from what goes on at
home. The day's made up of grousing and fighting, except that instead
of fighting among ourselves it's the Germans we fight. Maybe the
grousing's a bit different, too, from what it is in peace time. The
Englishmen swear most when the meals aren't all they might be, but the
Scotch and the Irish are mostly angered because the German devils won't
come out and fight so's we can give them the cold iron. The English
don't seem to mind that so much, so long as they have full stomachs
and can keep firing away at the Germans with the big guns and the
rifles."
Corporal Graham Hodson, Royal Engineers, wrote to his parents: "I am
feeling awfully well, and am enjoying myself no end. Oh, it's a great
life!" So little downhearted were his men that an officer, after
observing them, said admiringly, "You are a lively lot of beggars. You
don't seem to realise that we are at war."
One man, however, thought it well to give the inexperienced a little
warning. He was a wounded soldier who was travelling in a train. At a
point on the line where it ran parallel with the road he saw a brand
new Territorial battalion marching up to the front, He stuck his
bandaged head out of the door and yelled, "Are you dahn'earted?" The
Terriers, from the colonel to the smallest drummer, shouted, "No-o-oh!"
The wounded man replied, "Well, you ---- soon will be when you get in
those trenches."
When they were being heavily shelled a regiment shouted to their
comrades in some distant trenches, "Are we downhearted?" A pause
ensued, then a bloody spectre raised himself from a trench, shouted
"No!" with a last breath and fell back dead.
It is a curious fact in the Army that the harder the conditions the
more cheerful the men are. When everything is all right there is
grumbling, but as soon as things are bad they all get as happy as
sand-boys.
The "wild pulsation of strife" seems to be a "rapture" to some, and
that soldier no doubt meant what he said when he wrote to his parents,
"You can't believe how happy I was fighting the Germans. I felt as if I
were in a football match."
A wounded soldier said that there was a fascination in battle that made
him wish to be in one again. "You forget all fear, everybody is full of
excitement. You hardly think of your funeral."
An officer wrote, after describing the terrible marches our troops
had to make in their strategic retirement to the neighbourhood of
Paris: "Our long ordeal came to a sudden end. For reasons we could
not understand the Germans were retreating on our left and forsaking
the tempting bait of Paris. On September 5th we got the order to
advance, and instantly new life flowed into our veins. It is amazing
how speedily we forget our fatigue and the mental and physical horrors
we had gone through. Though their feet were sore and many of them
bleeding, the men stepped back to the Marne singing, 'It's a long, long
way to Tipperary,' or the new version, 'It's a wrong, wrong way to
tickle Mary.'"
Sir Douglas Haig, the General who led so well in the retreat, had
good reason for saying, "We have had hardish times, but nothing in our
history has surpassed the fine soldierly qualities displayed by the
troops."
CHAPTER XVIII
Play and Work
So well did our soldiers keep up their spirits that they were always
ready for a little play even when engaged in hard work and fighting.
Here is an instance given by a Coldstream Guardsman: "We were down to
the last cigarette in a box that had done the company for a week. There
was a fight to get it, but the sergeant-major said we would have to
shoot for it like the King's Prize at Bisley. It was to go to the man
hitting most Germans in fifty shots. A corporal was sent up a tree to
signal hits and misses as best he could. Half the company entered, and
the prize was won by a chap who had twenty-three hits. The runner-up
had twenty-two, and as a sort of consolation prize he was allowed to
sit near while the winner smoked the cigarette. He said being near the
smoke was better than nothing."
Seven men of the Worcestershire Regiment were able to do a little
business one day when they were told they could go for a stroll. They
encountered a party of Germans, and captured them all without firing a
shot. It was so simple. "We just covered them with our rifles and they
surrendered."
Few of us take our easy work in time of peace in the playful spirit
which was shown by our soldiers in the trying experiences of the
trenches. This is what an officer wrote: "For three weeks we remained
near the Aisne, east of Soissons, taking our turn in the trenches in
shifts of four days and nights with two days' rest south of the river.
We made the most wonderful trenches. The men called them the rabbit
warren and themselves rabbits, and when the big guns gave ten seconds'
warning they cried out, 'Here comes the gamekeeper,' and darted into
their holes."
A soldier invalided home told of this mixture of play with work, or of
work with play. "I got my wound in a fight that you will never hear
of in official despatches, because it was a little affair of our own.
It was what you might call a night attack. We had some leisure in our
position along the Aisne, and there was a little village near our lines
where we used to go for a bit of a lark. One night, coming back--there
were about ten of us--we were surprised to find a light in an empty
farmhouse, and were still more surprised to find sounds of revelry
coming out through the window. We peeped in, and there were about fifty
Germans drinking and eating and smoking, and generally trying to look
as if they were having a jolly old time. A dare-devil of an Irishman
suggested that we ought to give the Germans a little surprise, and we
were all in with him. Doing our best to look fierce and create the
impression that we had at least a brigade behind us, we flung open the
door without any ceremony. Our first rush was for the passage, where
most of the Germans had stacked their rifles, and from there we were
able to cover the largest party in any one room. They were so taken
aback that they made very little resistance. The only chap who showed
any fight was a big fellow, who had good reason to fear us, for he had
escaped the day before after being arrested as a spy. He whipped out a
revolver, and some of his chums drew swords, but we fired into them,
and they threw up their hands, after one had sent a revolver bullet
through my arm. We fastened them up securely, collected all the smokes
and grub they had not touched, and marched them off to the camp."
A soldier wrote: "One day last week we were on the move, and were about
as hungry as men could be, when we came on a party of Uhlans just about
to sit down to a dinner, which had been prepared for them at a big
house. They looked as if they had had too much of a good time lately,
and wanted thinning down, so we took them prisoners, and let them
watch us enjoying their dinner. They didn't like it at all, and one of
them muttered something about an English pig. The baby of the troop
asked him outside to settle it with the fists, but he wasn't having
it. After the best dinner I've had in my life we went round to where
the Uhlans had commandeered the supplies, and offered to pay, but the
people were so pleased that we had got the food instead of the Germans
that they wouldn't hear of payment."
On another occasion Uhlans were driven out of their "supper room"
by a small body of our cavalry. They left a finely-cooked repast
of beefsteaks, onions and fried potatoes all ready and done to a
turn, with about fifty bottles of Pilsener lager beer, which was an
acceptable relish.
It was as good as a play when some of our soldiers were looking at and
wishing for walnuts, and a German shell came and knocked them off the
tree for them.
On another occasion when a German shell had set some wood on fire they
cooked their food on the opportune flame.
A bombardier, R.F.A., wrote: "We were unable to sleep for the pouring
rain, and sat at a big camp fire with hot tea and rum. The boys asked
me to sing 'Annie Laurie,' and I was never in better voice. When I
finished there were officers, and even the staff officers, who had come
over the field in the rain to join in. They were nearly all Scotch,
and 'Annie Laurie,' after all, is to a Scot what the 'Marseillaise'
is to a Frenchman. One fellow was singing 'Boiled Beef and Carrots,'
when a bullet came and knocked his cap off. An officer nearly died of
laughing."
"The labour that delights us physics pain," as the corporal of the
Garrison Artillery found, who wrote of his work: "There is something
terribly fascinating about this sort of thing, and every day brings
some new excitement and experience. I feel more the hardened old
veteran each day, and don't care a straw where they send us. I may not
tell you where we are, but I am proud to say we have seen as much sport
as most of them. We are being looked after splendidly. Our officers are
all kindness and consideration. The major is a typical warrior, and a
thorough sport (as you well know). We don't care where he leads us, we
are so fond of him."
When at one place the German searchlights were turned on the British
lines and an artillery fusillade began, a man of the Middlesex Regiment
shouted to his comrade, "I say, Bill, it's just like a play an' us in
the limelight." The enemy had not got the range accurately, and so
little was the effect of the fire that some of our men laughed loudly
and held up their caps on the end of their rifles to give the German
gunners "a bit of encouragement."
Rifleman Horace Copley, 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifles, wrote: "Such
a good joke! The Germans have just fired over forty shells at what they
think is a line of trenches. There is a biscuit tin flashing in the
sun, and they think it is a heliograph. Some joker has fixed the tin,
and they fired at it all day yesterday, exploding thousands of pounds'
worth of big shells. But the tin is still flashing. Ha, ha!"
If on this occasion the failure of the Germans caused amusement, on
another occasion the success of our gunners (so hideous is war) did
the same. "The officer in charge," said a looker-on, "gave the order
to fire to the gunners, and no sooner was the order given than it was
carried out. What made me laugh was every now and then the officer
would say, 'There are some Germans over there,' and the reply from
the gunner was, 'All right, sir, I'll soon have them down,'; then he
started firing the gun, and had them down in a few seconds."
Even out of the fighting at Mons, Bandsman Wall, and others of the
Connaught Rangers, got all the fun of a fair. "We had nothing to do but
shoot the Germans as they came up, just like knocking dolls down at
the fair ground. Some of our men are beginning to fancy themselves as
marksmen. If they don't hit every time they think they ought to see a
doctor about it."
So playfully did our soldiers take their work that a man had a football
tied to him as he marched to battle.
Another could not help writing almost all his letter home in football
terms: "The great match for the European Cup is still being played
out, and I daresay there's a record gate, though you can't see the
spectators from the field. That's one of the rules of the game when
this match is on. In spite of all their swank the Germans haven't
scored a goal yet, and they're simply kicking at the ball any way in
their blind rage at not being able to score. Our team is about as fit
as you could have them, and they're all good men, though some of them
are amateurs and the Germans are all 'pros.' The German forwards are a
rotten pack. They have no dash worth talking about, and they come up
the field as though they were going to the funeral of their nearest
and dearest. When they are charged they nearly always fall away on to
their backs, and their goalkeeping's about the rottenest thing you ever
set eyes on. I wouldn't give a brass farthing for their chances of
lifting the Cup, and if you have any brass to spare you can put it on
the Franco-British team, who are scoring goals so fast that we haven't
time to stop and count them. The Kaiser makes a rotten captain for any
team, and it's little wonder they are losing. Most of our side would
like to tell him what they think of him and his team."
Mr. Harold Ashton, of _The Daily News and Leader_, showed to a Horse
Artillery gunner a copy of that paper. "Where's the sporting news?"
asked the artilleryman as he glanced over the pages. "Shot away in the
war," replied Mr. Ashton. "What!" exclaimed Tommy, "not a line about
the Arsenal? Well, I'm blowed! This _is_ a war!"
One day men of the Lincoln Regiment had a game of football, and French
soldiers looked on. During the game a German aeroplane came over and
dropped a few bombs, but no one was injured. The game was stopped
and there was a rush for the rifles. They fired, but did not succeed
in winging the aeroplane, and a French machine gun was brought into
action. It finished the aeroplane and the game was continued. The
Frenchmen cheered and said, "You English are very misunderstandable.
Fancy playing football when German bombs are dropping from the skies!"
The difficulty is, however, as one football devotee explained, that
"you can never count on getting your team together. Only the other day
I was talking to four of our best men when bang came a big shell, and
when I picked myself up I couldn't see a trace of them--blown to atoms
like that."
Football is difficult in such circumstances, but think of the spirit
which enables the men to play it at all!
The following amused those in the trenches who heard it. Some of our
gunners having lost their way at night wandered about until they were
ready to drop with fatigue. Then in the darkness they ran into a
detachment of cavalry posted near a wood. They could not make out the
colour of their uniform and feared that they were Germans. Their relief
was great when one of the cavalry shouted out, "Where the hell do you
think you are going to?" "I do not approve of swear words," said the
gunner who related the adventure, "but I was more than glad to hear one
then. It made us know that we were with friends."
"Yarns" like this are spun by those who have to watch or who have
nothing to do but wait and see. There is always a funny man to raise a
laugh, and not infrequently rival jesters enter into competition. There
are rhymesters, too, and they try to put into crude verse and apply
to a well-known air something that has happened on the previous day.
If a private has lost the photograph of the girl he left behind him,
he cannot get consolation from his best friend, for the whole company
would hear of it and sing about it.
Sometimes their work led the troops to a little bit of sport. "We
billeted for two days at a place two days' march from Belgium and had
a pretty good time bathing and--what was most amusing--fishing in a
small pond for 'tiddlers.' I and a chum went to a woman at a house and,
making her understand the best way we could, begged some cotton and a
couple of pins. We had a couple of hours fishing and captured quite two
dozen, although before long lots of our chaps caught the complaint and
did the same as we did, causing much amusement. I suppose that French
woman had to buy a new stock of cotton, but she was a good sort and was
as much amused as the soldiers."
CHAPTER XIX
War as a Game
It has been said that war is a game at which kings would not play if
their subjects were wise, and the German nation was certainly not wise
when it allowed its Emperor to make war against the world. Germans,
however, do not think of war as a game at all, but as a most serious,
even moral thing, and they are indignant with our soldiers for applying
to its grim experiences the common terms of sport, and especially of
football.
It is this sporting spirit of our soldiers that enables them to fight
gamely and to die gamely. Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) said of the
House of Commons that it was "dull with some great moments." The same
may be said of war, and our men forgive its dangers and dullness for
the sake of its great moments.
In one engagement the Royal Highlanders jumped out of the trenches
and charged "as if they were kicking off in a Cup-tie final." They
commenced to shout, "On the ball, Highlanders!" and "Mark your men!"
They continued yelling to one another until they had driven the Germans
back. Who can say that "Mark your men!" did not have a stimulating
effect upon the Highlanders?
"Dodging shells and bullets," wrote Sapper Anderson, R.E., "is far more
exciting than dodging footballers."
A subaltern wrote: "I adore war. It is like a big picnic; I have
never been so well or so happy. We are enjoying all the benefits of a
Continental holiday. It has done me a world of good coming out here."
A private of the 3rd Worcester Regiment wrote: "In the trenches the
British are excelling themselves as men of stamina, for, believe
me, it is killing work; perfect murder, in fact. Yet they hardly
ever complain. Six men and an officer had to go into hospital with
frostbite, and my feet have not got the circulation back yet. Never
mind, we must keep up our reputation as British soldiers, and stick
it. The snow has gone again, and it is up to your neck in mud in the
trenches. I have had one or two pack ponies to look after, but I have
thrown up the job, as it was too tame. I prefer being with the company
in the firing line, as I felt lost being with the transport and no
shells flying over it. It makes you long for your chums after being
with them all the time. We play football with German helmets, which
are all over the place."
A young officer who had been fighting ever since the beginning of the
war was ordered a month's leave for the sake of his health. "I've got
a month," he said to a correspondent, "but I rather fancy I shall be
back in a week. It's fine to be at home again--and--and--all that.
But when you've once been in the thick of the game it holds you like
a magnet. I'm only a few miles away from the hot stuff now, but I am
already beginning to feel the pull of that magnet. I'm off to bed.
Funny sensation going upstairs! We've been diving into bed for weeks
and weeks--rabbit holes for cots and straw (if you are lucky) for
counterpanes, and the only chambermaids we've had to knock us up in the
morning have been the 12 lb. shells. Good-night!"
Some of our men were defending a café at the battle of Mons. In the
café there was an automatic piano, and when they first saw the enemy
coming one soldier said to another: "Put a penny in the slot. Jack, and
give them some music to dance to." So every time there was a German
attack after that the "band" struck up. They fought, eye-witnesses
declared, as though it was a new and delightful kind of game they had
discovered.
Lieutenant C.A.E. Chudleigh, who is serving with the Indian Force, says
in a letter: "One usually spends most of one's slack hours in terrific
efforts to dig oneself out of several layers of grime, and it is a job,
too, with nothing but scrubbing soap and cold water out of a ditch.
It sounds awful to you I expect, but it isn't really as bad as it
sounds. For one thing we are getting so used to it, and if approached
in the true holiday spirit it really becomes quite a sort of picnic.
No rotting! I really have thoroughly enjoyed the last few weeks since
we have been here. I don't think I have had so many jolly good laughs
in my life. It is a funny thing that, on looking back, I think I have
spent most of my life in search of excitements and interesting scenes
and people, and now I have found them in profusion. It is as good as a
cinematograph."
Speaking of dispatch-riding in the war, a motor-cyclist said to a
reporter, "I've never really lived till I came to the war. We have to
rough it at times, but the fun we have is simply gorgeous. Yesterday a
shell (he laughed much when he said this) came down about fifty yards
from me, but I got through with my dispatches without a scratch. This
is splendid work for the nut who wants an outlet for his high spirits."
And our Indian troops get equal enjoyment from the game. A dusky
warrior being asked how he liked being in action replied, "Sahib, all
wars are beautiful, but this one is heavenly."
At the beginning of winter at the front, games were arranged for
leisure days and evenings. There were to be inter-trench and inter-army
football matches. A Battle Hunt Club was formed, and a pack of
foxhounds brought over from England. A phonograph company sent songs,
which, with the aid of field telephones, could be "turned on" to any
trench at any time.
We suspect that it is chiefly young soldiers and new arrivals at the
front who think of war as a game. The game must seem to be played out
when winter days have to be passed in cold wet trenches, when frost
bites, when wounds are inflicted, when food and other supplies are
delayed. Many poor soldiers must echo the sentiment of one of their
number who wrote at the end of a letter, "I must admit that I shall
not be sorry when peace comes. A little of the game of war goes a long
way. At first it is interesting, but the horror and foolishness of it I
shall never get over."
The following extract from a letter of a young officer to his parents
suggests that the pleasures of war, depending as they do on excitement,
are, to say the least, fleeting. "People at home, and even other corps
out here, do not realize what the infantry have to go through. Such
things as many nights out in the open, rain or no rain, long marches
over roads which have almost become bogs, perhaps no food all day, not
because the A.S. Corps don't bring it up, but because you have a lot
too much to do to eat it, and when you haven't got anything to do, you
are too exhausted to eat it.... We manage to keep our spirits up and
are quite cheery; one feels very down when one loses a pal, but we feel
it is impossible to turn aside the wheels of fate. So we leave them to
their rest behind us, forget about them and cheer up."
Another officer wrote: "If there is such a thing as hell on earth this
must surely be it. I have been in the firing-line for four days; in the
trenches for three, and just behind in support to-day, which isn't much
better. They shell us nearly all day, and you have to creep into the
farthest corner of the trench expecting the infernal things to burst on
you. At present we are holding back thousands compared to our hundreds.
They attacked yesterday and to-day in masses, but were driven back. I
haven't washed or had my boots off since I got here, and am mud almost
from head to foot, including hair."
CHAPTER XX
The Courage that Bears
The courage that bears and the courage that dares are really one and
the same.
At a certain period of the night it became exceedingly important that
the enemy should have no indication of the position of a detachment of
British infantry which had been moved up towards him. Unhappily a stray
shot shattered an arm of one of our men. In his agony the poor fellow
allowed a cry to escape him. Next moment, seizing a piece of turf with
his uninjured hand he thrust it into his mouth, where he held it in
position until he was able to crawl back through the lines.
Not less of the courage that bears was shown by Corporal Lancaster, of
the Coldstream Guards. He received an agonising wound, but was warned
by his comrades that if he groaned he would disclose their position to
the Germans. He endured in silence for six hours and then died.
If patience is a form of courage, those men were very brave who went
through the days and nights of marching that had to be done during
the retreat after the battle of Mons. "We were told if we fell out it
was at our own risk as we would be captured by the advancing Germans.
My feet were bleeding, the blood coming through the laceholes of my
boots." Even when they were marching men fell asleep. The Army Service
Corps had, at times, to work twenty-two hours out of twenty-four to get
food up to the men.
A Royal Medical Corps man who worked on hospital trains wrote: "Some
of the wounds are terrible, but the patients are very plucky. I asked
in one carriage how they were. The reply, though not a man could move,
was, 'We're all right, chum, our wounds are going on fine.' A few had
lain where they fell on wet ground for four days, as they could not
be taken away because of artillery fire. A man whose nose had been
hit said that it always had been too big. A chap who had been wounded
twenty-five times, said to a chum when the train was starting, 'Buck
up, Jack, I'll meet you in Berlin for Christmas dinner.'"
Soldiers who have got bad wounds often speak of them as "mere
scratches." They are plucky and do not want to annoy other people.
If indeed they groaned and whimpered they would be told by their
comrades to "shut up" and "make less row." A friend of the writer who
is a Chaplain to the Forces, speaking of the wounded after a battle,
wrote: "But, oh, the patient endurance of these men. I would not have
conceived it possible that they should have borne what they did bear
so absolutely without complaint--nay, not only without complaint or
murmuring, but with an unaffected gratefulness for not being worse,
and for having escaped at all. They get their wounds dressed, take
chloroform, give consent to have their limbs amputated just as if they
were going to have their hair cut."
"Give them a cigarette and let them grip the operating table, and they
will stick anything until they practically collapse," wrote Corporal
Stewart, R.A.M.C., in a letter from the front referring to the British
wounded.
A private of the Royal Munster Fusiliers did not mind a shrapnel wound
in his left arm, but deeply repined that it had taken off a tattooed
butterfly, which had long been his pride and joy. He consoled himself
with the elaborate tattoos on the other arm--"But the loike of that
butterfly I shall niver see agin," was his sad reflection.
"What gets over me," a soldier who had been shot in the foot remarked,
"is how it ain't done more damage to my boot!"
And wounded soldiers are most grateful for any attention that is shown
to them. An Irishman who was brought into a hospital a mere wreck,
after being washed, shaved and put between sheets told his nurse that
he could not "sleep for comfort," and then asked, "How can I thank you
enough for what you have done for me? There's no use praying for you,
for there is a place in Heaven reserved for the likes of you."
Of a nurse in a French hospital, which was a church, a British soldier
wrote: "If ever anyone deserved a front seat in Heaven she did. God
bless her! She has the prayers and all the love the remnants of the
Fourth Division can give her."
How Ruskin would have appreciated the gratitude of a man of the
Lancashire Fusiliers of whom a sergeant of the 5th Lancers wrote: "He
had two ghastly wounds in his breast, and I thought he was booked
through. He was quietly reading a little edition of Ruskin's 'Crown of
Wild Olive,' and seemed to be enjoying it immensely. As I chatted with
him for a few minutes he told me that this little book had been his
companion all through, and that when he died he wanted it to be buried
with him. His end came next day, and we buried the book with him."
War is not always exciting, but frequently monotonous, tedious and
painful. All this is taken as in the day's work. "Sore feet are the
great trouble, most of us being a bit lame. We also get sore hips
from sleeping and lying so much on the ground.... But don't imagine
there are funkers. The first time we were in action most of us were a
bit trembly, but soon the nerves got in hand, and our officers hadn't
much use for their 'Steady, boys.' What gets at you is not being able
to come to close quarters and fight man to man. As a fact, we see very
little of the enemy, but blaze away at the given range and trust to
Providence. For that matter we see very little of our own fellows,
and only know by the ambulance men passing through our lines what
regiments are near us. For hours we stick on one spot, and see nothing
but smoke, and something like a football crowd swaying half a mile off.
Our grub department works well, as we have not moved very rapidly, but
it sometimes happens that outlying companies, and even regiments, lose
touch of their kitchens for a day or even more. There has been some
trouble caused by one lot collaring the rations meant for another, but
that is bound to happen, even on manœuvres. It is all in a lifetime.
Keep smiling. That's the way to win the game."
One of the 3rd Hussars wrote: "The work out here is very stiff; in
fact, the Shop Hours Act doesn't come anywhere near it. We go out early
in the morning and about the following week we think of coming in for a
sleep. You would be surprised if you were to see how cheerful all our
troops are."
A soldier wrote to his wife: "After what I have gone through if I ever
get home from the war I shall never grumble at meals or care where
I sleep." Surely the thought of the hardships and wounds which our
soldiers bore so bravely should cure our "nerves" and give us a little
of their courage to bear.
Writing from an ambulance, Percy Higgins, of the Royal Medical Corps,
said: "It is surprising to me that anybody should ever complain of
ordinary aches and pains when you see men here with legs and parts of
their bodies plastered up in plaster of paris, quietly reading and
telling you they feel grand."
CHAPTER XXI
In a Military Hospital
When there is war a military hospital is a microcosm of its miseries,
but the heroism of our soldiers greatly mitigates them. On the field of
battle soldiers show the courage that dares, and when they are brought
into hospital it is found that they have also the courage that bears.
"It's a treat," wrote a R.A.M.C. man, "to see the 'Tommies' when their
wounds are being dressed. You may ask them twenty times if they are
feeling pain, and they will say 'No,' or 'Only a trifle,' until at last
they collapse."
The self-forgetfulness of some of the wounded is sublime. Writing of
patients who had passed through No. 14 Clearing Hospital 5th Division,
in France, Dr. Ludwig Tasker said: "We had one poor fellow whose tongue
was actually on his neck, as the result of having had his left jaw
blown off. Of course, he could not speak, and when, at a sign from him,
I gave him a sheet of paper, all he wrote on it was that his captain
was worthy of the Victoria Cross."
When Private H.S. Funnell, of the 2nd Sussex Regiment, died in a French
Military Hospital, a nurse wrote this to his wife: "Your husband was
apparently thinking about the battle a good deal, for quite at the last
he called out: 'Come on, boys, at 'em again. I don't mind if they are
six or a hundred to one. Last fight. I'm done. Good-bye, lads. The good
old Sussex."
A medical man serving with the R.A.M.C. at the front, in a letter to a
friend, said: "Our Tommy is a grand fellow. There was one--a Notts and
Derby man--brought in last night. He was peppered all over, and I said
to him as he lay on the table, 'What happened to you?' and he said, 'I
got three damned coal-boxes'--the name we give to the big Black Maria
German Shells. I said to him, 'Why did you try to stop three?' and he
said, 'I couldn't get out of the way.' We dressed him in the head, the
back, the right shoulder and the buttock, mostly nasty wounds. Then I
said, 'Are you hit anywhere else?' and he said, 'Well, I think there
are two or three on my right leg, but they don't matter. Will you give
me a cigarette?' I gave him one, and he said, 'I'm used to this. I'm
a collier, and I've been twice in pit accidents, but I'd sooner go
through those than run up against another coal-box.'"
To have been wounded in eleven places is the remarkable record of
Private E. Johnson, of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, now in the Duchess
of Westminster's Hospital at La Toquet. He tells his wife in a letter
that he has pains in the head that nearly make him mad; but forgetting
himself and thinking of his children he continues: "It nearly breaks
my heart to think I cannot send little Violet and Bessie and Lillie
something for Christmas; but never mind, let us hope we shall live for
another Christmas."
A Highlander who had been maimed for life was asked afterwards in
Hospital if he regretted becoming a soldier. He replied, "No, because
I've had a good home and a man with a good home should fight for it."
An English artilleryman, who before the war was a professional
footballer in the North of England, died in hospital. He had previously
undergone amputation of both legs. Up to the end he chatted with two
visitors who had come to solace his last moments. The dying man, who
in his time had been a great centre forward, told them he did not
fancy living with his two legs off while all the other "boys" were out
playing, but declared he would not have missed the excitement of the
last battle for anything. Refusing grapes and chocolate, he took a
cigarette and said: "Have you any newspapers with you? I should like to
glance over the football news before I pass out."
There is an irrepressible Welsh Fusilier at the Stanley Hospital,
Liverpool, who is known as "the Joker of the Regiment." He has three
bad bullet wounds, and yet he is as cheerful as a lion comique, and
keeps his fellows as cheerful as children at a circus.
After telling his mother in a letter that he was "in dock for repairs,"
a soldier continued: "This leaves me with a smile on my face, only I'll
say good-bye, lest we should never meet again."
Rifleman P. King, 2nd Battalion King's Royal Rifles, wrote from
Portsmouth Hospital: "Since I have been home I have had a leg amputated
4 inches below the knee, so now one tin of blacking will last twice as
long, as I shall only have one boot to clean!"
So it is that the brave spirit of our soldiers enables them to joke
even at serious wounds. A hand of a Royal Irish Rifleman was shot off
at the battle of Mons. For some time after being admitted to hospital
he was very despondent about his future. How could he earn his living?
One day, however, he broke out with a laugh. "If all else fails. I'll
get a job as a shorthand writer."
Another Highlander, with arm terribly shattered by a shell, said: "I
will be first-rate for opening taxi doors in the Strand; lucky it was
my left arm."
A soldier told a reporter this about a wounded Highlander. When brought
to hospital he began to swear, and those who had picked him up at
great risk told him that this was a strange sort of gratitude to men
who had most likely saved his life. "Maybe you have, and maybe you
haven't saved my life," he said in his dogged, dour way. "A'm no saying
onnything aboot that; but what A want to hear is what did ye dae wi' me
wee cap. It's loast, it is, an' A'll hae tee pay for anither oot o' me
ain pocket."
At all times a good soldier dislikes to go to hospital; but especially
so on active service. He wants to do all he can for his country and he
dreads to be suspected of "skrimshanking." The reluctance of Colonel
Loring, who commanded the second Battalion of the Royal Warwickshires,
to go to hospital caused his death, which was a great loss to the
Army. Wounded in a foot by a shrapnel bullet he refused to go to
hospital, had his foot bound up in a puttee when unable to wear a boot
and led his men on horseback. This made him a conspicuous mark for
sharpshooters, and after two chargers had been killed under him he was
himself shot dead.
Great courage is shown by orderlies and ambulance men connected with a
military hospital. There is the danger of catching infectious diseases
and the danger of collecting the wounded during and after a battle.
For ambulance men there is no excitement, or the stimulus of "hitting
back;" yet they often get hit themselves.
CHAPTER XXII
Ready to Return
I read this in the letter of an Army Service man printed in _The
Evening News_. "There was a Guardsman in hospital in France with me who
had eight bullets in him, besides three ugly bayonet wounds. He had the
constitution of a horse, and after he had his 'rattles,' as he called
the bullets, taken out he swore that he would be back before Christmas
to square accounts with the Germans. All he wanted was to return to the
fighting."
"He lies upon his bed of pain.
Despite of nurses deft and kind
He is unhappy; it is plain
That something weighs upon his mind.
Ask him his dearest wish to name,
And, smiling even on the rack,
He tells, without a trace of shame,
How he is anxious to get back."
In a half humorous way our soldiers took their wounds. They knew from
experience, as a distinguished officer once said to me, that a battle
field is a disagreeable place, but keen soldiers that they were, they
thought that there was one thing worse than a battle, and that was not
to be in one. Many soldiers were quite indignant at being sent home for
what they called "scratches that will heal."
A sergeant was anxious to return to the war because he thought that he
ought not to have been sent away from it. He was hit by five bullets,
but why for this trifling matter should his colonel have ordered him
out of the firing line and into an ambulance?
Men make light of wounds in arms, hands and feet. "They have just
earned us a little rest. We shall soon go back to the trenches again."
A correspondent thus wrote of a second Lieutenant of the Royal Scots:
"Only this morning he drew me a picture of war and its effect upon the
novice. 'Imagine your chaps groaning all around you, your best pal shot
through the heart at your feet; imagine the shrapnel screaming above--I
was knocked down and stunned four times in a few minutes by shells
exploding--imagine houses burning, women shrieking, and all about the
place the mangled bodies of men and horses, and blood, blood, blood. I
suppose I'm chicken-hearted, but I only left school last year.'
"'And your wound?' 'Oh, it's not much; still, I'm going home this
afternoon. Never want to see any more war.'
"Two hours later I saw him leap into a train labelled ----. 'Where are
you off to?' I asked. 'Back to the front. Can't bear the idea of my
regiment being there and me loafing about some health resort.'"
A private of the Royal Sussex Regiment wrote this from a hospital in
France: "My hand is very painful, but it will soon get better, I hope,
as they want us back in the firing line, and every man away means fifty
Germans kept alive and kicking."
Rifleman G. Harper wrote to his brother from a hospital at Paignton: "A
bullet went through the left side of my face, struck my teeth, turned
downwards, and just missed the main artery. The surgeon says I am one
in a thousand to be alive, so it is better to be born lucky than rich.
I don't think they will let me go out there after this, but if I get a
chance I am off after their blood again."
A medical officer said to an interviewer, "I am glad to have been
through the hottest part of the battle of the Aisne, and at the hottest
corner, and only hope to get back in time to see the aftermath. The
attitude of the wounded is wonderful, for all those who are not
seriously hurt do nothing but talk about getting well and having
another go at 'those ---- Germans.'"
After our King had visited in an hospital soldiers sent back from the
war the spirit of all the wounded was voiced by a man who, describing
his impression of the King's visit, said, "He's real human, that's
what he is, and I, for one, shall be glad to go back and fight for him
again."
"So shall I," came in chorus from every bed in the ward.
A corporal of the Coldstream Guards wrote: "If you look over the
official lists of casualties you will see that I was 'killed in
action,' so, strictly speaking, I ought not to tell you anything. I
am looking forward to getting back to the firing line, and hope the
Germans will find me a lively corpse."
For bringing fifty-nine men out of action when all the officers and
non-commissioned officers were killed or wounded, T. Burns, of the
Middlesex Regiment, was made a King's Corporal. At the battle of Mons
a bit of shell hit him between his eyes and he got a bullet through a
thigh and one through a wrist. Even this was not enough of it. "I am
going out again as soon as I am well. I am itching for sweet revenge,
or another coconut shie. 'All you knock down you have.' What a game!"
_The Morning Post_ correspondent wrote: "I saw a colonel yesterday who
has been invalided three times. He had seven bullet wounds, and had
lost two toes by a shell. The last time he was wounded, though he lay
exposed to a murderous fire, he ordered away all rash attempts of his
men to succour him. When his last wounds were healed in an hospital in
the South of France he was so anxious to return to duty at the front
that the only leave he asked for was twenty-four hours in Paris to
visit his wife. Not that the front is exactly pleasant, but because
being away from it is just impossible."
A newspaper correspondent lately wrote that he saw a train full of
officers and soldiers leaving London to go back after a few days' leave
to their "funk holes" at the front. "They were," he wrote, "as cheerful
as boys off to the seaside for a holiday."
Probably, however, some of our soldiers are not now as ready to return
to the war as they were when they knew less about it. They have no
desire again to "wade knee deep through blood." A wounded man who
returned lately to England said when he found himself in a comfortable
hospital bed, "I could do with a rest here until they send for me to
make me Kaiser."
One of the Coldstream Guards, who had been invalided home, was asked if
he was keen to return. He replied, "No, I am not a liar or a lunatic,
and only a liar or a madman would say that he was anxious to return to
hell. Still, I'll go if they want me with a good heart."
When a man has done his "bit" in the war he is sometimes unselfish
enough to wish to give some one else a chance. Once bitten twice shy;
turn about is fair play.
"Send out the Army and Navy,
Send out the rank and file,
(Have a banana!)
Send out the brave Territorials,
They easily can run a mile.
(I don't think!)
Send out the boys' and the girls' brigade,
They will keep old England free:
Send out my mother, my sister, and my brother,
But for goodness' sake don't send me."
Many soldiers who had retired from the Army were ready to return to it.
It does them credit that they should in this way desire to help their
country. One of these heroic volunteers is Piper Findlater. It will be
remembered that he gained the V.C. at Dargai in October, 1897, when he
continued playing "The Cock o' the North" after being wounded.
CHAPTER XXIII
Fashions at the Front
Sleeping out in the open in all weathers is rough on clothes, and our
soldiers had to treat themselves to new suits whenever they could
pick them up. A Highlander was rigged out in the boots of a Belgian
infantryman killed at Mons, the red trousers of a Frenchman, the khaki
tunic of a Guardsman, and the Glengarry cap of his own corps. When he
wanted to look particularly smart he wore a German cavalryman's cloak.
An Irish soldier complained that the trousers he had got from a dead
man were tighter than his skin. "I can sit down in my skin, but I
can't sit down in them trousers." Another said that he had been almost
equally unfortunate. His nether garments were so short that they made
him "look like a blooming boy scout." A trooper is reported to have
said that he did not get a pair of Uhlans' boots to fit him until he
had "knocked out six of the blighters."
The following is an extract from the letter of an officer in the Army
Veterinary Corps:
"The British soldier has done all right. He is a most curious
creature. When he goes to war he gives away most of his badges and all
distinguishing marks to the nearest girl, loses his hat and replaces
it with a chauffeur's cap or a felt hat, and by not washing or shaving
for a week at a time makes himself look like a tramp or a gipsy,
and as unlike a soldier as can be. He then--without the slightest
warning--proceeds to show that he is the finest fighting man in the
world."
The dress worn in the trenches makes us think of Robinson Crusoe. The
"Trench Kit" consists of a short greatcoat of goatskin, with the hair
outside, woolly Balaclava caps, and sandbags filled with straw for the
legs and feet.
Rifleman Roberts wrote to his wife: "We have all got nice fur
coats--'Teddy Bears' we call them--and they are all right, I can tell
you. I have just got a complete change of new underclothing, all
swansdown, and nice thick gloves and a scarf."
The Sergeant-major of the 1st Leicestershire Regiment said in a letter:
"A barber would do a roaring trade here, no one having shaved for
weeks. Beards vary according to the age of the individual. Mine, for
instance, is something to gaze on and remember. They are not by any
means what the writer of a lady's novelette would describe as a perfect
dream."
In a letter to his mother an officer wrote: "I haven't washed for six
days at all, as we have only one water-bottle each day for drink and
all, and I don't know how long it is since I have had a bath. To-day I
had my hair cut; you would faint if you could see it. It was done by
one of the battery cooks with a pair of very blunt, loose scissors, and
an enormous comb with all the teeth split."
A German bullet once did a little hair-cutting. It took the cap of a
soldier off his head and made a groove in his hair just like a barber's
parting. All thought that the German who fired the shot was a London
hairdresser.
A private of the 4th Middlesex Regiment found two pieces of scented
soap in a German haversack, and got greatly chaffed for using scented
soap on active service. The luxury of a bath was indulged in by a
company of Berkshires at one encampment. Forty wine barrels nearly full
of water were discovered, and the thirsty men were about to drink it
when their officer stopped them. "Well," said one, "if it's not good
enough to drink it'll do to wash in," and with one accord they stripped
and jumped into the barrels!
This was told of "wee Hecky MacAlister" by Private T. McDougall, of
the Highland Light Infantry. Hecky went into a burn for a swim, and
suddenly found the attentions of the Germans were directed to him.
"You know what a fine mark he is with his red head," says the writer
to his correspondent, "and so they just hailed bullets at him." Hecky,
however, "dooked and dooked," and emerged from his bath happy but
breathless.
A sergeant wrote: "I happened to find a bit of looking-glass. It made
a rare bit of fun. As it was passed from comrade to comrade we said,
'Have a last look at yourself, my boy, and bid yourself good-bye.' The
laugh went round; then 'Advance!' and we were all at it again."
"One man of the Life Guards was very particular about his appearance
(says Trooper Walter Dale, now at Newcastle-upon-Tyne), and even in
war-time always carried a little hand mirror about in order to take
occasional peeps at himself to see that all was right. I happened to
pass him on the field when he had been badly wounded. There he lay,
with the glass in his hand, curling his moustache. I suppose he was
anxious that when death found him he should be a credit to a smart
regiment. I had to pass on that time, but the next journey we intended
to take him to hospital. It was too late. He was dead, and his glass
was still clutched in his hand. His 'quiff' had been curled till it was
a beauty."
A _Times_ correspondent wrote: "Within sight of the spot where these
words are being penned the chauffeur of the General Staff motor-car is
completing his morning toilet in the open. After washing hands and
face in a saucepan, minus the handle, which is balanced on an empty
petrol can, he carefully brushes his hair with an old nailbrush, using
the window of the car in which he has slept as a looking-glass."
Another man had his toilet completed in a French hospital without any
trouble to himself. After being sent to England because of a wound
in his left thigh he told a friend that his finger nails had been
manicured. "'Shocking fingers,' the French nurse said, 'for a young man
to go about with,' so she brought a bowl of soapy water and a box of
tools and manicured (that is what she called it) my finger nails."
A corporal of the Coldstream Guards wrote:
"There was a chap of the Grenadier Guards who was always mighty
particular about his appearance, and persisted in wearing a tie all the
time, whereas most of us reduced our needs to the simplest possible.
One day, under heavy rifle fire, he was seen to be in a frightful
fluster. 'Are you hit?' he was asked. 'No,' he said. 'What is it, then?'
"'This ---- tie is not straight,' he replied, and proceeded to adjust
it."
A motor-cycle despatch-rider wrote: "I have just had a hot bath and
shave, and complete change of underclothing; the shock may kill me, but
it is a glorious feeling, and I am glad to say I have by the use of
iodoform kept free from vermin, which so many fellows suffer from out
here."
"I hung my shirt out all night to dry on a tree," writes Lance-Corporal
Laird, Royal Army Medical Corps. "At daylight I found that a piece of
shell had taken the elbow of it. Good job I wasn't in it."
Some of the shirts wanted washing badly. Seeing a man busily examining
his shirt, an officer asked him had he caught many. "Yes, sir," was the
reply, "I think there's a new draft come in."
Fashion demanded a clean shirt when an Army Service Corps man went to
a party. "We stayed at ---- four days. The inhabitants were delighted
to see us as they felt much safer. Little did they dream of what was
in store for them later on. A lady and a gentleman gave me and my two
mates an invitation to tea. They came down the lines to fetch us. We
made ourselves up as best we could under the circumstances. I put on
a clean shirt, washed, shaved, and had a regular brush-up. We arrived
at the house, or rather mansion, and were quite out of place, as we
thought, walking on polished tiles in the passage, with our big heavy
boots. It was a perfect slide. We took a seat by a big round table, had
wine, cakes, tea, cigars and cigarettes. To our surprise, this lady's
father was mayor of ----. The lady, whose husband was with his regiment
about eleven miles away, sang us two songs in English, 'The Holy
City' and 'Killarney.' It was a perfect treat to have one's legs under
a table to drink from cups and saucers. Next day we thought it was a
dream."
CHAPTER XXIV
Graphic Descriptions
Many things surprised our soldiers on coming to France, and they
described them with much humour. Speaking of the French soldiers a
sergeant remarked: "Aren't their trousers baggy? They can march all the
same, though. D'you know what they're paid? They get a halfpenny a day,
and they're paid every five days in a crossed cheque. Well, they seem
glad to see us, don't they, sir? As soon as ever I pull up they gather
round and want to shake my hand. It's as bad as bein' a parliamentary
candidate."
This is what a soldier said of the American Ambulance at Neuilly, where
he spent four weeks when wounded: "My word, what an 'ospital. Had
American millionaires to wait on us. They did it right, too. They're
a decent lot, them millionaires. Waited on us 'and an' foot. An' the
grub! All French, an' cooked by a real French chef."
Another soldier described French tobacco as "something you have to
smoke all day to get a smoke."
After his first fight with the Germans a soldier who had been through
the last Boer war, said; "This is fighting if you like. South Africa
was a tea-party to it. The shells go by with a horrible sort of hiss,
and then burst with a roar that puts thunder in the shade, and if you
are near you probably lose your head and arms, and various portions of
your anatomy."
Writing of a wound, a sporting soldier said: "The next day, when
partridge shooting was beginning at home, sure enough I was 'winged'
among the turnips."
Another man said that when the shrapnel came it seemed as big as a
motor-'bus and to hit him all over. "The shells were like small beer
barrels in the air."
An Irish soldier wrote: "We charged the Kaiser's crush with a yell that
would have put the fear of death into the heart of the most stoical,
and with our bayonets we dug them out of their trenches, same as you'd
dig bully beef out of a can."
An Irish soldier remarked to an interviewer when asked what the war was
like: "There ain't anything to talk about. It's fight, an' march, an'
fight again, with maybe a crack on the 'ead once in a while. It is the
biggest rifle meeting I ever saw--Bisley isn't in it."
The rain that fell in September in the trenches, he said, was so heavy
that it was like as if the earth had been turned upside down and water
had been poured in at the other side.
Another remark was that he had slept so much in odd places that now he
thought he could sleep on a clothes-line.
Another soldier who slept in odd places was Lance-Corporal Waller, of
the 4th Royal Fusiliers: "I have slept with strange company since I
came out. One night with sheep, another in a schoolroom, once on top
of a pigsty, once in a manger, in several ditches, in a first-class
drawing-room, in 4 inches of snow, behind the counter of a café, and in
a feather bed."
A gunner thus described the work of his battery: "We just rained shells
on the Germans until we were deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on
the position could have sold for old iron after we had finished, and
the German gunners would be just odd pieces of clothing and bits of
accoutrement."
One of the Black Watch wrote: "We have had a fiendish week of fighting
around A----. We had to force our way step by step. Every inch we
marched was coloured red with the blood of our men and the Germans. It
was like passing through a graveyard where an earthquake had turned up
all the corpses and left them lying above ground. As we picked our way
through the long lane of dead, that never seemed to have any turning,
we noticed among them now and then wounded men, who begged hard for
water or some assistance in doing up their bandages. It was pitiful,
and we were so helpless."
Another soldier wrote: "You can always tell the Germans who have never
been in action against us before. The ones who know what to expect come
up very gingerly, like men sneaking into the vestry of a church to rob
the collection boxes. The new hands come across in a fine, jaunty way
until they get a volley into them, and then they stare up at the sky to
see who's throwing things at them. That's the ones who are able to look
up, for some of them are done for, and have looked at the sky for the
last time. We are showing the Germans that there are a few goods marked
'Made in England.' Our officers are the real goods, the very best. If
the Germans had been worth their house-room they would have put an end
to the whole of us at the battle of Mons. They came on like a swarm of
bees, and we did enjoy it. It was like firing at a mountain; you could
not miss it. Sorry I can't stop to write more. We are going to business
at 7 p.m. ('Where's my gun?') What would you like out of the crown
jewels in Berlin? That's where we are bound for."
Some soldiers who had lost their regiments gave this description of
hiding from the Germans: "When night came we endeavoured to escape
from our perilous position, and just outside the door we found a
German sentry. We passed quite close to him, but didn't stop to say
'Good-night.' How we did it I can't for the life of me tell, but we
did it, and then made off as we thought towards the British lines,
but to our disgust found we were going right into the German lines.
We decided, therefore, to anchor there for the night and get away in
the morning. We found this was the German Headquarters Staff, so that
we can say we dined with the German generals that night, the only
difference being that they were inside and we were outside; they were
having wines, etc., and we had swedes and no etc."
A soldier said of a battle that it was "like a display of fireworks at
the Crystal Palace with the wounded and dead left out. Last week we got
shrapnel for breakfast, dinner, and tea, but the enemy might have saved
himself the trouble of dishing out those doses, as they were absolutely
ineffective."
One of our men gave a dying German soldier's opinion of the British
Army: "When I was hit I lay for hours on the ground, and got chummy
with a German chap, who had got a nasty sabre cut in the head as well
as a bayonet stab in the kidneys, and was 'booked through.' He knew
his number was up, but he was as cheery as though he were at a wedding
instead of a funeral. He talked about the fighting, and dealt out
praise and blame to French, German, and British alike. He thought a lot
of our Army, and spoke highly of its fighting capacity. He said it was
wonderful the way we faced odds and difficulties that would have beaten
any other army. Almost the last words he said were: 'You'll win this
time, and you deserve to win your victory, but we'll never forget or
forgive, and some day a new Germany will avenge us.'"
The following descriptions are from the letters of soldiers:
"Fighting's kindergarten work compared with lying in your damp clothes
in the washed out trenches night and day with, maybe, not a chance of
getting any more warmth than you can get from a wax match. We were
lying in the trenches in the early morning, with chattering teeth,
between which we were muttering prayers for only a spoonful of good
brandy or rum to put some heat into us, when there arose a frightful
din all round, and the pickets were driven in as though a team of mad
bulls was chasing them through the meadows at home. 'We're in for it,'
says I to Tommy Gledhill, my chum. 'Anything's better than lying
here,' said he. 'Anyhow, it'll warm us up just as well as brandy, and
it'll help a few more Germans to a place where they'll not be bothered
with chills.'"
"We have had a lot of fighting since the 5th. On Sunday we got it very
hot indeed. Nothing less than hell with the lid off will describe it
accurately, but please excuse my strong words. We had a fine time, I
can tell you--a proper Guy Fawkes' turnout."
Three men of the 5th Lancers found a house that had been left in a
hurry all complete with cooking pots. "I am preparing the supper,
which smells all right. I am perfectly happy, as this seems the proper
country for me, and I never felt better in my life. I am picking up
French all right, but I have not started eating frogs yet."
One of the Somerset Light Infantry wrote: "I made a pudding for the
boys the other day. I swear it was bullet-proof, but, all the same, it
went down with a little jam."
The following is from a letter written by one of the Connaught Rangers
and printed in _The Evening News_: "Sure, and it was the grand time
we had entirely, and I wouldn't have missed it for lashings of money.
It was near to Cambrai when we had our best time. The Germans kept
pressing our rearguard all the time, and at last we could stand it no
longer, so the word was passed round that we were to give them hell
and all. They kept pressing on and on in spite of our murderous fire
until there was at least five to one, and we were like to be cut off.
With that up got the colonel. 'Rangers of Connaught,' says he, 'the
eyes of all Ireland are on you this day, and I know you never could
disgrace the old country by letting Germans beat you while you have
arms in your hands and hearts in your breasts. On, then, and at them,
and if you don't give them the soundest thrashing they ever got in
their lives you needn't look me in the face again in this world or
the next.' And we went for them with just what you would know of a
prayer to the Blessed Mother of our Lord to be merciful to the loved
ones at home if we should fall in the fight. We charged through and
through them until they broke and ran like frightened hares in terror
of the hounds. They screamed just like babies. After that taste of the
fighting quality of the Rangers they never troubled us any more that
day, but next day more of them came up, and managed to cut off half
a company of our boys holding a post on our left. The German officer
rushed off to Tim Flanagan, the biggest caution in the whole regiment,
and called on him to surrender the file of men under his orders. 'Is it
me your honour's after talking to in that way?' says Tim, in that bold
way of his. 'Sure, now, it's yourself that ought to be surrendering,
and if you're not off this very minute, you ill-mannered German
omadhaun, it's me will be after giving you as much cold steel as'll do
you between this and the Kingdom of Heaven.' Then the German officer
gave the word to his men, and what happened after that I can't tell to
you, for it was just then I got a bullet between my ribs; but I can
tell you that neither Tim nor any of his men surrendered, nor did the
Germans get that position until it pleased the colonel to order the
retirement."
The Connaught Rangers, however, were not the only soldiers who revelled
in a fray. Here is what even a sensible English soldier wrote in
reference to a battle: "At 12.30 a shell hit my rifle and smashed it to
matchwood. I next got my cap knocked off my head, and I went to pick
it up. Then I got a bullet in the muscle of my right arm, which put me
down for a couple of hours. But, never mind, my dear, I had a good run
for my money."
Here is a pen picture of part of a battle: "Fellows were being knocked
out all round, and wounded were crying for help. Frequently one would
say to his neighbour, 'Bill, how's ta gettin' on?' but Bill, who had
been as cheery as a cricket just before, was found to be picked off.
Our ranks were so thinned that by the time we got within charging
distance of the enemy's trenches we had not sufficient men left for
a charge. A shell burst close to me, and I thought I had lost both
my legs. I crawled to a haystack, where there were a number of other
wounded fellows, and one who was not. The latter was assisting the
wounded. Presently some Germans came up, and ordered the unwounded man
to run. He had not gone 10 yards when they shot him dead. I thought my
time had come, but the Germans made off. An R.A.M.C. man had his head
blown off while putting wounded men into an ambulance. I was close to
Colonel Knight when he was killed. His last words were, 'Never mind
me, men; go on and capture the guns.' The German shrapnel firing was
absolutely deadly."
The effect of searchlights is thus described: "In the dark the Germans
turned on searchlights. We could see them hunting about for someone to
pot at. Uncanny that was. To see the blooming big lane of light working
round and round. It was like a monstrous eye, looking for its prey.
Then we heard the shells whistle. And when the pale, weird light came
round to us and lit us up so that we could see each other's faces,
Lord, it made my blood run cold--just as I used to feel when I was a
nipper and woke up and saw a light and thought it was a ghost, and lay
there wondering what would happen next."
CHAPTER XXV
Unconscious Humorists
It cannot be claimed, perhaps, for any one class of society that they
are more humorous than are others, but as soldiers live, day and night,
in a crowd, they sharpen each other's wits, and their training has, or
ought to have, the effect of making them good observers.
As the British soldier is brave without knowing it, so is he an
unconscious humorist. He does not set up to be that sad thing--a "funny
man."
Our soldiers began the campaign against Germany facetiously by printing
in chalk on the troop trains at Boulogne "No-stop run to Berlin."
When our soldiers come home, you will hear some wonderful French. A
man from Limerick asked a war correspondent to translate an English
sentence into French. "I did it to the best of my ability". He looked
at me very solemnly; then said: 'Do it agin, sorr.' I did it again,
and he stopped me. 'Whisht, hold yer jaw, or be me soul the guarrd'll
arrest ye for a German spy; yer Frinch is homemade an' brought up on
th' bottle.'
A bombardier of the Royal Field Artillery wrote:
"One of our fellows thought he would try for some eggs at a farmhouse.
Naturally they couldn't understand him, so he opened his mouth, rubbed
his stomach, flapped his arms and cried, 'Cock-adoodle-doo!' The eggs
came promptly. Another chap tried to get some bread at a farm. After he
had made all sorts of queer signs the woman seemed to understand and
said, 'Oui, oui, M'sieur,' rushed back into the house and brought back
a bundle of hay! There was a terrific roar of laughter from the troops.
The non-plussed look on the woman's face and 'fed up' expression on the
chap's made a picture."
Private Macnamara, of the Royal Fusiliers, relates that during the
fighting on the Aisne a German called out to a company of Fusiliers:
"Wait till we catch you in our barber's shop in London." The Fusiliers
wiped out the German company with the bayonet, a private shouting: "You
won't get to London again."
Another soldier wrote, probably joking: "Our trenches and the enemy's
were only a couple of hundred yards apart, but we could not get the
beggars to give us a chance to pot them. So at last I called out,
'Waiter!' and up went five heads at once."
At one time, when the German shells were particularly numerous, a
private of the 1st Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry called out, "Fall
in here for your pay, A company." There was a good laugh.
Another shell also caused a good laugh. In the rush to avoid it, two of
our men fell over each other, and one actually sat upon the shell. It
exploded. When the smoke cleared away the man was discovered to have
escaped with very slight injuries to himself; but his trousers were
torn to shreds, to the great amusement of his comrades.
A private of the Royal Irish Regiment wrote this to his mother:
"There's plenty of hard fighting coming our way these days, and though
we suffer cruelly once in a while, we always give them something to let
them know that we have not lost our fighting powers in 'Paddy's land,'
whatever else we may have lost. You could not help laughing at some
of the tales the German prisoners have about us. When they knew they
had been captured by an Irish regiment they wanted to know how it was
we were not at home in the civil war that was going on. Says I to one
of them that came off with that blarney in his queer English, 'This
is the only war we know, or want to know, about for the time being,
and there's mightily little that's civil about it or the way you are
behaving yourselves.'"
It was the birthday of Pat Ryan, of the Connaught Rangers, and he
thought that he ought to do something to celebrate it. Without telling
anyone, he went out of the trenches in the afternoon, and came back
after dusk with two big Germans in tow. How or where he got them nobody
knows. The captain of his company asked him how he managed to catch the
two. "Sure, and I surrounded them, Sorr," was the reply.
Even in the midst of a bayonet charge an Irish soldier caused laughter
by calling out, "Look at thim German divils retratin' with their backs
facin' us."
Private William Price, R.A.M.C., wrote: "Last Sunday week about 6 p.m.
a shell (coal boxes we call them), eight inches wide and four feet
long, passed through the roof and side wall of a barn in which the
bearers sleep, and fell into the grounds of the hospital, where we were
having a little service; but, thank God, it didn't explode. Strange
to relate, the subject of the sermon was 'Miracles,' and this was one
of the greatest, for had it come a little later there would have been
several of us having food and rest in the barn. The shell smashed heavy
beams, hurling them just where I should have been resting. We buried
the shell, and enclosed it with a fence. This is the verse we made up
and placed on it":
Sunday, September 27th, 1914.
"Here lies a shell of German invention,
To do us great harm was their intention;
And in striking a barn it caused great alarm,
While the troops were singing the ----th Psalm.
But don't be afraid, the danger is o'er;
Still if it goes off we'll say 'au revoir.'
So now we'll conclude with love and affection,
Sincerely trusting there'll be no resurrection."
An Irish soldier told his mother in a letter that they had German
shells for breakfast--not egg shells. She was not to believe, however,
about the hardships they had to endure, even from her son. "I never
believe anything I hear and only half of what I say."
Outside a temporary post office was the notice, "We close from noon to
2 p.m." Underneath a joker wrote, "Prussian cannon are requested to do
the same."
The Germans, in crushing numbers, were about to enter a town. It was
necessary to hold them back long enough to enable the British troops
to retire in good order. A handful of Scots were selected for this
duty. Sheltered in one of the first houses of the village, they kept
up a well-sustained fire on the enemy, but had to endure themselves a
perfect storm of bullets. The shattered windows flew in all directions.
The walls were riddled with bullet holes. Already several of our men
had dropped. Suddenly the German fire ceased; the enemy were evidently
shifting ground to a better position, and one of those silent moments
of waiting ensued--the worst of all to endure. While the pause lasted,
a Scottish sergeant noticed that our frail fortress was a grocer's
shop. On a shelf he found a few packets of chocolate. An idea occurred
to him. Turning to his men, he held up the packets, saying: "Whoever
bowls his man over gets a piece." The German fusilade began anew. The
Scots, roaring with laughter at the sergeant's marksmanship prizes,
fired back as coolly as if at target practice. The sergeant, while
keeping his own rifle busy, watched the effect of the fire on the
advancing enemy. He recorded each successful shot with "Got him," and
handed over a cake of chocolate to the winning marksman. Alas! there
were few prize winners who lived to taste their reward.
Here is an instance of dour Scotch humour. Two Highlanders, one bigger
than the other, were both hit, and there was only one stretcher
available. The little one refused to enter it and the big one got angry
at the refusal, so raising himself with his unwounded arm he cried,
"You go the noo, Jock, an if you're not slippy about it, you'll gaur me
gae ye something ye'll remember when am a' richt again." Jock didn't
wait any longer after that.
A British cavalry subaltern who was cut off from his men hid in the
edge of a wood by a road. It was not long before he saw an unsuspecting
armed German soldier patrolling the road. He could have shot the man
without warning, but felt that it would be akin to murder to kill him
in cold blood. In order to instil a little of the spirit of combat into
the affair, therefore, he crept out of cover, ran up behind the "boch,"
as our Allies would call him, and gave him a ferocious kick. Instead of
showing fight the startled and pained German gave a yell and ran for
dear life, leaving the subaltern laughing too hard to shoot.
This sort of chivalry, however, had for once to pay a penalty. A patrol
of the Gloucestershire Regiment met two German soldiers looting an
orchard. They did not like to shoot them with their backs turned, so
they shouted to give them a chance of defending themselves. One of the
Germans turned about and sent a bullet crashing into the brain of the
man who had been the first to suggest that they should be warned.
A Highlander writes home from the war to a friend that things are going
so badly with "our dear old chum Wilhelm" that "I've bet X---- a new
hat that I'll be home by Christmas."
Bets are common in the trenches. Gunners wager about the number of
their hits, riflemen on the number of misses by the enemy. A soldier
told a correspondent that they gambled in the trenches on the next man
to be killed. "We'd get up a little sweepstake, draw names and--wait!
There was always a favourite. I held that not altogether enviable
position three times. But I disappointed my backers! One day I noticed
that a fellow a few yards away kept on turning round to look at me. He
did it so often that at last I realised with a bit of a shock that he
had drawn me in the sweepstake. He was waiting to see me tumble down
with a bullet through me. It would have been worth 15s. to him."
Here is an extract from a letter: "I received your request for a German
helmet off a head I had knocked over. Will try to get you a German's
ear or some other portable article. I am very fit and well, and trying
to force British culture on the Germans. I think now we have put a
spoke in the Kaiser's wheel for good, and I am proud to think that I
have been a small splinter in the spoke."
It is unlawful to trade with the enemy, but our soldiers consider that
it is legitimate to play practical jokes on the Germans when their
trenches are near ours, as is sometimes the case. A beetroot field
was near, so our men carved caricatures of the Kaiser on beetroot and
inside put reports of the Allies' successes in East and West. The
"busts" were then adroitly hurled into the German trenches. This sort
of pleasantry frequently led to furious abuse and the liberal exchange
of bullets, generally harmless.
At one place the German trenches were advanced to within sixty yards
of the British first line of trenches. The Germans had fixed up barbed
wire entanglements, to which they attached here and there a number of
empty jam tins, arranged in couples in such a way that on the slightest
disturbance they were bound to jangle. Crawling very cautiously out in
the dead of night, one of our men fastened the end of a ball of string
to the nearest point of the barbed wire, and let the string run out as
he crawled no less cautiously back again. The first tug at the string
when he had regained the shelter of the British trench started a faint
jangling, which startled the German sentries. The next produced a
fusilade; and the Germans blazed away at the clattering jam tins, while
the British roared with laughter.
For nearly a week a battery of the R.F.A. on a ridge had been shelling
the enemy's position, and the Germans could not find them; but at
last they did, and made it so hot for a time that the gunners had
temporarily to leave their charges. When darkness fell, however, they
removed the guns to a fresh position on the left, but, in order to
mislead the enemy, they rigged up some ploughs and bundles of straw to
resemble guns, and left them in the old position. The ruse was entirely
successful, and our men were laughing up their sleeve all the next day,
for the Germans kept up an incessant fire upon the dummy guns.
In one trench, where a German sharpshooter regularly opened the day
with a shot through a certain loophole, the trench amused itself by
insuring being waked up for the fighting. They hung a strip of metal at
the back of the loophole. The clang of bullet on metal woke them up--an
alarm clock "made in Germany."
Here is a tale of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The Germans
opposite them get their rations--cognac, bread, and meat--every
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night. The Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders found this out, and regularly on these nights they did a
bayonet attack, and brought back quite a lot of grub.
CHAPTER XXVI
Nicknames
The nicknames that are given in the Army show what keen observers
soldiers are. The German howitzer shells are eight to nine inches in
calibre, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke.
On account of this they are irreverently dubbed "Coal-boxes," "Black
Marias," or "Jack Johnsons" by our soldiers.
Guns were christened "Black Peter," "Stammering Sam," "Jimmy," "The
Warbler," "Weeping Willie."
The German machine gun is called "The Carpenter," "The Gramophone,"
"The Alarm Clock," "Lightning."
All shells are "Souvenirs." Some are called "Will-o'-the-Wisps" and
"Humming Birds." Some "Sighing Sarahs," some "Porridge Pots." "Woolly
Marias" are shells that burst in double puffs of white woolly smoke.
"Baby" and "Mother" are far-reaching guns of ours. The latter is so
called because it takes good care of our infantry. Another gun has the
name of "The Hot Cross Bun" because it is hot, snorts as if always
cross, and takes the bun by its ability to hit what it is fired at
nearly every time.
Bullets are called "Haricot Beans."
This is from a soldier's letter: "A chap in our company has got a
ripping cure for neuralgia, but he isn't going to take out a patent,
because it's too risky, and might kill the patient. He was lying in
the trenches the other day nearly mad with pain in his face, when a
German shell burst close by. He wasn't hit, but the explosion knocked
him senseless for a bit. 'Me neuralgia's gone,' says he, when he came
round. 'And so's six of your mates,' says we. 'Oh, cricky,' says
he. His name's Palmer, and that's why we call the German shells now
'Palmer's Neuralgia Cure.' I am writing this under fire. Every now
and again a little message from the Kaiser comes whizzing in this
direction, but no damage is being done, and we don't worry. Bang!
Another message."
Our soldiers called the German General Von Kluck "Old One O'Clock,"
partly because of his name and partly because his troops nearly always
attacked at that time of the night.
German soldiers are known as "Sausages" and the Uhlan Lancers as the
"Ewe lambs." The Kaiser himself is no more to our men than "Willie the
Weed," or "Crazy Bill."
In letters from the front there used to be puzzling references to
"Asquiths." Now we know this is the name for French matches, because
you have to "Wait and see" what happens when you strike one. German
snipers are known as "Little Willies" and some of the shells as
"Whistling Willies."
The outer line of trenches, where the men are posted at first to draw
the German fire, is known as the "drawing-room," and the inner line,
where the attacks are really met, is called the "reception-room." The
ground at the rear where the dead are buried is the "dormitory."
When a "Taube" aeroplane approaches British lines the men call out
"Here comes a stormy petrol."
Between 9 and 10 p.m. German sharpshooters generally came out to fire
on any man who exposed himself. This was called "The good-night kiss."
The emergency ration becomes "The imaginary ration." A British soldier
was given by a Frenchman a tame rabbit. He kept it in one of the
trenches; but called it an emergency ration, because, though fond of
his pet, he might one day have to kill and eat it.
Very appropriate is the football metaphor, which describes spies as
"playing off side" and prisoners as "ordered off the field."
Metaphor comes also from picture houses, and when a man says that he
"has been given a stall for the pictures" it is understood that he has
to do duty during the night in a rifle-pit close under the enemy's line.
Barbed wire entanglements are "fly traps" and "spiders' webs."
A certain village was called shrapnel village because the Germans
shelled it all day and only killed a chicken.
CHAPTER XXVII
Tender-Hearted Because Brave
In his farewell advice to the British troops sent to France, Lord
Kitchener told them to be "invariably courteous, considerate and kind,"
and this they certainly were.
First of all they were kind to each other. Here is a tit-bit from a
private soldier's letter: "One of our chaps got a letter from home to
say that his wife had given birth to twins, and just at the time when
he had cause to be proud of being a father twice over, a German bullet
knocked him out. That was their way of adding to the congratulations
that everybody showered on him. It was hard lines, and there was not
one of us who would not rather have gone in his place."
Another soldier told with much sympathy that his chum immediately after
writing to his mother, "I have got through without a scratch so far"
was killed by a bullet. "I could have cried," he said, "when I saw the
letter."
In letters from the front many cases are recorded of men who have lost
their regiments, but who would not accept shelter or food from the
French peasantry for fear of getting them into trouble with the Germans.
We are told that the only thing that put our men out and made their
faces sad was the instances they saw of German savagery to the civilian
population. A man of the Army Service Corps wrote: "It was a pitiful
sight to see the people fleeing from their homes carrying all they
could save. Our soldiers were very kind to them, and gave them whatever
they could spare--and sometimes more than that. I saw one young woman
trying to reach some fruit from a tree which was a good way out of her
reach. I went over and gave her some pears which had been given to me.
She ate them rather hurriedly, but before doing so gave me a kiss on
both cheeks."
It was the tender hearts of the British soldiers, as well as their
coolness and courage, that made the old women and little children take
to them as they marched through France. "Cheer up, mother," one soldier
shouted, and another covered a shivering old woman with his coat. A
French woman's clothes had been taken by the Germans, so a Highlander
tore his kilt and gave her part of it for a covering.
The children took hold of the hands of the brave Allies, or tried to
get a ride on their shoulders.
A British sergeant went into a French farm house that had been shelled
by the Germans. He found that all the family had been killed "except
a little girl of about seven years, and she was just conscious. Both
her legs had been blown away near the knees, and one of her arms
was missing from below the elbow. The rain was coming down into the
wreckage, and I took off my greatcoat and wrapped the poor, moaning
child in it. I sat down on the floor to hold her on my knee, and she
just opened her eyes and gave me a grateful look. Then she moved her
sound arm, and the next thing I found she had lifted something to my
head, and it slipped over my shoulders. Her arm dropped. She was dead.
She had given me her rosary. I thought I had a heart of stone, but I
cried like a child that night, and I wasn't the only one."
And our soldiers were most thoughtful about those belonging to
them whom they had left at home. A sergeant thus wrote of a brawny
Yorkshireman who had lost his regiment: "His chief grievance was that
he had not been able to write and tell his wife where he was and how he
was getting on. 'Tha' sees, lad,' he remarked in perfect seriousness,
'th' missus knows that now and then I drink one or two more glasses
than's good for me, and she'll be gettin' anxious.' A few days before
he had been in a terrifically hot engagement, yet the only thing that
worried him was the fear that the 'missus' might be anxious about what
he called the 'teetotal lay'!"
Private F.W. Dobson, 2nd Coldstream Guards, wrote this to his wife:
"It is with the greatest pleasure that I write this letter, as it is
our wedding anniversary--September 30th. I only hope we shall spend the
next one together. You will know by the time you receive this letter
that I have been recommended for the V.C.--an honour I never thought
would come my way. In fact, I do not yet realise that it is possible. I
only took my chance, and did my duty to save my comrades. It was really
nothing, but I shall never forget the congratulations and praise I
received from our officers, my comrades, and a Brigadier-General."
A sergeant of the 18th Hussars ended a letter to his wife with these
"home-sick" words: "Oh for a cup of tea with you. Your worst cup of tea
would come in very nice now."
Private O'Dwer, of the Irish Guards, said in a letter from the front to
his wife: "It was a great relief to hear from you. I was just having
my tea during a lull when I got your letter, and didn't I enjoy my tea
much better. On Tuesday last I escaped by a miracle from a bomb thrown
from an aeroplane. It did no damage, only made a very large hole in the
ground just where we were digging trenches."
Scrawled on the back of this letter which appeared in _The Evening
News_, was the following:
"Darling,--I am now lying in a forest with my leg shot off and don't
know when the ambulance will turn up. It's awful. We were completely
cut up. I hope to see you again. Love to baby and all.--Jack."
A King's Royal Rifleman wrote to his wife that the framed photograph of
herself and of their children, which was in his breast pocket, stopped
a bullet. "Last night in the trenches I dreamt I was back home again
and was playing with little Gracie and telling her some stories of
the fighting. Tell her I will bring her something, if it is only the
Kaiser."
Private G. Tomkins, of the Royal Sussex Regiment, wrote this to his
sister: "We have a saying out here, 'Don't dream of home.' When a
man has a particularly vivid dream of home he knows that he will be
killed in his next fight. There was a man of ours that awoke the other
night from a beautiful dream. He thought he was back at home on the
conclusion of peace, and he had a great reception from his wife and two
children. The two little ones were crawling all over him, and laughing
with delight. They were all happy, and the thing was so vivid that he
had to tell us all about it. It seemed to please him. Sure enough his
number was up, for that afternoon he was struck in the throat with a
bullet, and as he died the only words he uttered were: 'Oh, my God, I
shall never see my children again.'"
In the trenches on the Aisne after a hard fight, a wounded Seaforth
Highlander found one of the Gloucester with an unfinished letter in his
hand. It was written to his wife and little girl. It spoke hopefully of
the future, and said: "Tell Annie I will be home in time to make her
Christmas tree." He never got further, for a German shell had laid him
out.
An officer of the Bedfords, while in the trenches, was opening a parcel
and a letter from his wife, and in the excitement of the moment the
poor fellow forgot to take cover and he was shot through the heart.
A pathetic incident also occurred in the case of a private. He was shot
in the chest and the bullet also passed through a corresponding spot in
a photograph of his wife, which he carried with him.
A private in the Northumberland Fusiliers wrote: "I came across a
young chap sitting with his back against a tree--dead, and around him
in a circle he had placed all his letters and photographs, as much as
to say: 'Please post these to the people concerned, as I am dying.'
Another chap had in his hand the photograph of his wife and child."
Talking one evening at a camp fire, a soldier remarked: "I've got four
little nippers. George, the eldest, is a proper little chap. He sent me
a postcard out here of a black cat and wrote on the back of it 'Please
stroke the cat every night for luck.' I never forget to do that before
I go to sleep."
Our soldiers certainly have domestic affections. At a parade service
near the trenches they were singing away in fine style:
"Can a woman's tender care
Cease toward the child she bare?"
The singers broke down and the lines had to be left out.
The following was sent by Private Ingram, 2nd Welsh Regiment, to cheer
up his mother and encourage his brother:
"As you say, the Germans do want 'boiling,' and we are all trying our
best to do it, too. I am glad to hear Arthur [a brother] has joined
the Army. Do not worry, for it is all for the best, and remember that
a soldier's death is a glorious one. To die fighting for my country is
the greatest honour I could have, and I am glad Arthur thinks so too."
In romance and even in history it is the lover who shines in war, who
achieves, who conquers, whose deeds of daring save situations at the
psychological moment and help to win battles and wars.
When the Guards were leaving London for the war, a girl leaning on the
arm of her soldier lover said, "Keep your pecker up, Dick." "'Taint
me," he replied, "as needs keep my pecker up, but German Bill." Women
have much to do with keeping up or keeping down a soldier's "pecker."
"Thy voice is heard through rolling drums
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes
And gives the battle to his hands."
In a letter from the front, a private of the Leicestershire Regiment
wrote: "There was a chap of the Berkshires who, like many more of us,
had 'listed after a row with his girl. At the crossing of the Aisne he
got hit, and had just breath enough to tell me the name of the girl and
ask me to write to her. 'Tell her,' he said, 'I'm sorry we had that
row, but it was for the best, for if we hadn't had it I should not have
been able to do my bit for my country. It seems awfully hard that I can
never see her again to explain things to her, but I'm sure she will
think better of me now than if I had been one of the stay-at-homes.
Good-bye, old chap; there'll be no more cold nights in the trenches for
me, anyhow.'"
Sergeant E.W. Turner, West Kent Regiment, wrote to his sweetheart: "The
bullet that wounded me at Mons went into one breast pocket and came out
of the other, and in its course passed through your photo."
A man said that when hit by a splinter of shell he believed half his
face had gone, but was now sure that when the bruises had gone from his
eyes his girl would recognise him.
A R.F. Artillery gunner wrote: "I harnessed up, and after a mad gallop
of 2,000 yards or so we came into our first action. We opened fire
immediately. It was just like our practice camp, except that I think
everybody realised that we were firing at targets composed of flesh and
blood instead of canvas, but having to concentrate our minds on the
working of the guns it soon passed off."
Yes, our soldiers did realise that the enemy had feelings like
themselves. After a battle a gunner wrote: "Their dead lay so thick
at one point in front of our trenches that we couldn't get our guns
across, because we were squeamish about riding over their dead in case
there should be wounded men mixed up with them."
In many letters we read of our soldiers giving food when they had not
much for themselves to wounded Germans.
A British officer who was being moved off on a stretcher with a
shattered arm, noticed a German being helped in with a wounded leg. The
officer at once got off the stretcher, saying, "Put that man on here.
He is hit in the leg and I am hit in the arm and able to walk."
A Somersetshire Light Infantryman saw a wounded German in the river
Aisne. He dived in and was bringing him out when a German shell burst
and killed them both.
An Army Chaplain saw an English wounded soldier lying next a German
wounded prisoner who was shot in both arms; the Englishman was holding
a cigarette whilst the German smoked it.
One German gave a gold ring and another his helmet as souvenirs to two
British soldiers who had given them water and bandaged their wounds.
The German prisoners got quite fond of our soldiers. One of them
escaped, but returned next day with eleven others whom he had persuaded
to desert.
In a lane through a wood at Soissons a correspondent met two British
infantrymen helping a wounded German towards the place where they hoped
to find an ambulance. The German had been badly hit in the upper part
of the body and again in the thigh. He was in agony and kept protesting
under his breath that he could go no farther. His friendly enemies
almost carried him between them, and they were talking to him after
this fashion: "Come on naow, ol' pal. You ain't goin' to give up naow.
Almos' there, we are. Jus' be'ind them there trees over there. 'Ere,
take a drink o' water an' you'll feel better. Come, ol' man, be a sport
naow."
The following is from the letter of a corporal of the Highland Light
Infantry: "In the retreat from Mons an artilleryman, slightly wounded,
asked a German for water, and was refused. On the Aisne last week the
artilleryman recognised the same German among a party of wounded, whose
cries for water couldn't be attended to quick enough. The recognition
was mutual, and the German stopped his crying, thinking he was sure
to be paid back in his own coin. The artilleryman took out his water
bottle and handed it to the German without a word. You never saw
anybody look so shamefaced as that German."
Private Cooley, of the 2nd Connaught Rangers, told this story. Cooley,
with a comrade, was left in charge of a German officer and eleven
German privates, who had been found wounded in a cave. "They asked us,
in broken English, for biscuits and water. We only had eleven biscuits
and half a bottle of water left, and this we divided among them as best
we could. At daybreak the Germans' shells fell all round the cave, and
part of the roof fell in, while shrapnel came through the opening. The
German officer wanted us to put out a white flag; but you can guess
what reply I made to that. Three of the poor devils were suffering
from terrible wounds, and one died at four o'clock in the afternoon.
About six o'clock it began to rain, and we managed to collect enough
rain-water to moisten their mouths. We could not help pitying them,
although they were Germans. About eight o'clock we recognised the voice
of the officer who had brought us up, and we were not sorry. It was the
worst twenty-six hours I have ever spent. There was a bearer party with
him, and they took the men into hospital."
A wounded Dublin Fusilier lay for a time among German wounded and
found that one of them was in danger of bleeding to death. The bandage
the Fusilier had to use for his own wound was the only one available.
Without the slightest hesitation he handed it over to the German, whose
life was saved by the application in time of that antiseptic bandage.
Unfortunately that act of self-sacrifice cost the Fusilier his life,
for he developed blood poisoning through the wound not being bandaged
at once, and was buried a few days later. When the German who had
profited by that lad's sacrifice heard of it he cried like a baby, and
for a while they had to put him under restraint for fear he should take
his own life.
A private of the Coldstream Guards said that they heard a German who
was lying on the ground between the lines calling out, "Comrade,
comrade; Englander, Englander!" When night came two of our men went and
brought him in. He had five wounds.
An officer of the Yorkshire Light Infantry wrote: "There is none of
that insensate hatred that one hears about, out here. We are out to
kill, and kill we do, at any and every opportunity. But, when all is
done and the battle is over, the splendid universal 'soldier spirit'
comes over all the men. To give you some idea of what I mean, the other
night four German snipers were shot on our wire. The next night our men
went out and brought one in who was near and get-at-able and buried
him. They did it with just the same reverence and sadness as they do to
our own dear fellows. I went to look at the grave the next morning, and
one of the most uncouth-looking men in my company had placed a cross at
the head of the grave, and had written on it:
'Here lies a German,
We don't know his name,
He died bravely fighting
For his Fatherland.'
And under that, 'got mitt uns' (_sic_), that being the highest effort
of all the men at German. Not bad for a bloodthirsty Briton, eh? Really
that shows the spirit."
The Germans have made several discoveries about the British soldier,
and know now that he has a kind heart. An officer in the Prussian
Guards put his arms round the neck of a British officer and said,
"Mercy, officer!"
Brave men are kind to dumb animals, and our soldiers were this. A
veterinary officer wrote: 'Our horses have stood the tough marches with
remarkable freedom from lameness and sore backs, which is testimony
to the very great consideration and kindness which the troopers and
drivers show to their dumb friends. I have particularly noticed, since
riding with patrols, how anxious the men have been after a heavy day in
the saddle to feed their horses and give them a rough rub down before
taking a bite or a drink for themselves. They always dismount and feed
them on all occasions with hay and wheat found on the farms and in
stacks in the fields, also with clover.'
"A man of the 17th Lancers, who had lost his horse near Binche in
August last, had a curious adventure. In a fight with a patrol of
Uhlans he recognised his old mount ridden by a German. The animal
recognised him and broke away from the enemy's ranks, carrying the
German rider with him. After the new master was put out of action there
was a joyful scene between the old master and the lost horse."
Writing to his father a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards speaks in
this way of his charger: "Dolly goes very well. She doesn't always
get corn, so is a bit thin. Thanks for remembering my best friend. I
always pinch the smallest thing for her, if it be only a muddy crust.
She greatly enjoyed the sugar you sent for her."
Trooper S. Stanley, Royal Scots Greys, wrote thus: "I owe my own life
and that of perhaps a whole army to my old horse. I was on outpost duty
at a lonely spot, and though I could not hear or see anything my horse
kept neighing and betraying signs of restlessness. I got down and came
on a German crouching in the long grass. He had a sword bayonet, and
evidently meant to get me unawares, and then the post would have been
rushed. I didn't wait to ask his intentions, but let him have a ticket
for another country. His yells brought his mates down, but I got away,
and the row alarmed the guard and spoiled their attempt at surprising
us. You bet the old nag had a special feed that night."
CHAPTER XXVIII
What the French and Belgians Think
After studying our soldiers for a considerable time a special
correspondent of _L'Independance_ wrote: "'Tommy' ... loves to laugh;
he has clear eyes and smokes almost continually a cigarette or a pipe.
He is a sportsman, who views war as a continuation of the sports he
practises in peace times. No one could be more placid than he. He does
not know what it is to be nervous. Two 'Tommies' at the beginning of
the war were driving a motor-wagon from Rheims to Amiens. They missed
the way, and arrived at Rouen. 'This is not the way,' someone told
them, 'towards Amiens; you will perhaps meet Germans.' 'That doesn't
matter. If we meet them we will shoot them,' was the reply. That is the
state of 'Tommy's' soul. He is convinced that everything will be right.
He never loses an opportunity of taking 'un tub' as thoroughly as
decency permits in the circumstances. And for nothing in the world will
he neglect to shave with care. Recently there arrived at an hotel,
over which flew the Red Cross flag, a wounded English soldier. He had a
piece of shell in the right hand, two bullets in his left shoulder, and
one in his stomach. He went, first of all, to the barber's shop on the
ground floor of the hotel. They pointed out to him that the ambulance
entrance was at the side. 'I see,' he said, 'but I must be shaved
first'!"
A French officer was also surprised at the extensive toilet of our
soldiers: "At Ypres I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance
of Tommy Atkins, whose smart appearance and jovial manner I greatly
admired. He's a perfect soldier. I saw him one morning making his
toilet when Taubes were flying over our heads and dropping bombs
not far away. He shaved first, and then, with a bucket of hot water
standing on the step of a railway carriage, washed himself, much soap
and rubbing with a large towel. I lost sight of him just when he was
putting his tooth-brush into a pot of paste to clean his teeth."
The correspondent of the _Petit Parisien_ wrote that he was impressed
by the excellent spirits and devotion to duty of the British troops,
and the fraternal solicitude of the officers for their men.
"Ah, those British soldiers!" exclaimed a French officer. "In my
regiment you only hear such expressions as '_Quel soldats!_', '_Ils
sont superb._' How splendidly they behave! In their discipline and
their respect for their officers they are magnificent."
The French people were delighted with the size of the Highlanders, and
with the kilts they wore. A woman shouted out in admiration as they
marched past: "There go the women from hell." She thought that was the
biggest compliment she could pay.
The French were surprised to see our men going into battle singing
songs and playing mouth-organs. They liked their gaiety and sporting
spirit. If they had understood the words they would have relished in
the following marching song the allusion to the Kaiser's order for the
extermination of General French's "contemptible little army:"
"What! Wad ye stop the pipers?
Nay, 'tis ower soon!
Dance, since ye're dancing, William,
Dance, ye puir loon!
Dance till ye're dizzy, William,
Dance till ye swoon!
Dance till ye're deid, my laddie!
We play the tune!"
The French must have been astonished at the pipes of the Highlanders
when they heard them first at Boulogne and at the marching song of the
Irish:
"It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary,
And the sweetest girl I know.
Good-bye, Piccadilly!
Farewell, Leicester-square!
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's just there."
For some time about twenty men of the London Scottish Highlanders did
military police duty in Paris, and patrolled the streets every day
looking after British soldiers who might be in the city for any reason.
To the people on the boulevards this patrol was a popular institution,
and they gave loud "Heep--heeps" and cheers for old England when they
saw them coming. The kilt of the Highlanders no doubt had something to
do with this admiration, and the curiosity of the fair sex must have
been at times embarrassing. But the dignified bearing of the men, their
genial courtesy, and their strict attention to the business in hand
sufficiently explained their popularity.
The French soldiers said that the charges of the British cavalry at
Lille were marvellous. They also admired the way the British artillery
was served, and on one occasion at least they had good reason for
doing so. Their 205th regiment of infantry was almost surrounded by
German infantry with machine guns. One by one the officers fell, and
the regiment was led by sergeants. On the point of being forced to
surrender they saw, to their immeasurable relief, several batteries
of the Royal Field Artillery dashing up behind across the shell-swept
field towards them. So terrific was the German fire that it seemed
almost impossible that the guns could come into action. The traces of
the horses struck were instantly cut; men jumped to seize the reins
when comrades fell. They swept out into more extended order, wheeled
round, unlimbered, and in a few seconds were shelling the German
positions. In ten minutes the Germans retreated and the French regiment
was saved.
The following extract from a letter from the front lets us see one
reason why British soldiers were popular in Belgium and France: "The
last place we were reserve, and occupied a village. Our company was
at an inn. The innkeeper used to get very nervous when he heard the
firing of big guns, and often asked me confidentially to tell him when
I thought it was necessary for safety to depart. His wife and family
and many of the women of the village had already gone. One day we got
a little shrapnel over us, and you should have seen the excitement
everywhere. People began to push off, and one saw huge carts full of
women and children going to safety. It was too much for Monsieur when
the shells began to burst over the village. He solemnly dressed himself
in his best, and almost with tears in his eyes entrusted his house to
us to be at our disposal, and pushed off some miles back. The soldiers
had the run of everything in the inn; not a thing was locked. Next
day, as things were quieter, Monsieur turned up with a beaming face,
expecting to find half his things gone! He couldn't make it out as he
went up and down and found not a thing touched, and yet the soldiers
had been there all the time! Finally he came to us and expressed his
entire admiration for the British Army and the excellent discipline
which prevailed."
Trooper W. Green wrote: "The French girls are awfully keen about our
men, and you should see them when we arrive in any of the towns. They
come and link arms with us until they are a blooming nuisance. It's
just goodness of heart, and we don't like to be chivying them off, so
they usually get buttons, badges, or anything they can beg off us just
for a keepsake. We couldn't be better thought of."
How well our wounded soldiers were tended in France is shown by the
following letter from a French nurse, who received her training in this
country:
"Last Sunday I went to see some wounded English soldiers at Versailles.
They are nursed in one of the largest and newest hotels there. You
should see how happy and jolly they are, and how petted by the French
people who go to see them and take them tea, grapes, cigarettes, etc.
Your soldiers are great favourites here. They are so glad when they
meet with somebody who speaks English. I spoke to them about England
and English people, and we sang English songs--'Dolly Gray' and 'Tommy
Atkins.' They made some tea and gave some to all the ladies present."
A French woman who could speak English said laughingly to a Highlander,
"If you kill the Kaiser you may marry my daughter." The soldier replied
that he would do that all right and that she could have a hair of
William's moustache.
Of a French lady, at whose house four British soldiers were billeted,
one of them wrote: "She was wondrous kind, and when we left for the
front Madame and her mother sobbed as if we had been their own sons."
Here is another little tribute: "I am very pleased with the way the
French have treated us. They are good-hearted people. Don't matter who
you see out they all salute you, and the ladies bow to you. What more
could you wish for?"
This man went on to say that he was always addressed as _Monsieur_ (Why
not?) and that he began to think that he was an officer.
And the Belgians also think of the British soldier as a kind-hearted
rescuer.
A little girl, an orphan refugee from Flanders, was taken and cared
for by a family in a London suburb. In spite of the kindness that
encompassed her, she was unhappy and full of terror. She remembered
the strange people with a strange tongue who had swept down upon her
home in Flanders, and the brutality and horror that followed their
incursion. The English people with whom she stayed were kind, but they
were strange, and their tongue was strange, and they terrified her. One
day the son of the house came home. He was in the New Army, and he wore
khaki. At the sight of the khaki the little girl flung herself at the
boy, clung about his legs, and called out "Anglais! Anglais!" She knew
now she was safe.
A wounded Seaforth Highlander heard that a woman with a newborn baby
was in a cottage in a village that was being shelled by the Germans. He
left the Red Cross van, rushed in and saved both mother and child as a
shell crashed through the roof. As he left another shell demolished the
cottage.
"I have often seen the British soldier," says a French correspondent,
"sharing his breakfast with starving Belgian refugees. In a corner
of the big courtyard where the British troops are quartered, I saw a
little girl of ten fast asleep on the straw. Two English troopers, men
with grey hair and moustaches, had tenderly covered her up in a thick
brown rug, and were watching over her as she slept. I went up and asked
them how the child had come there. They told me as they were returning
from the front after hard fighting they came upon the child. Her
parents had been shot, and she was alone in the world. At that moment
the child woke up, and, seeing a stranger talking to her friends, asked
anxiously if he had come to take her away. 'I don't want to be taken
away,' she cried; 'I want to stay here.' The stranger reassured her,
and the little one, pacified, was soon fast asleep again."
No wonder that a British officer was able to write:
"The Belgians are delighted to see us. As we entered one town all
the population turned out and cheered, and gave the men cigars and
cigarettes. It was almost embarrassing riding in at the head of the
column; it was almost like a Royal progress. It is very extraordinary
the faith the Belgians have in the British Army. Directly they see any
British troops they seem to think that all will go well."
_Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading_
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