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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 CHAPTER XVIII

BRITISH GUNNERS AS CAVE-DWELLERS

[Sir John French has repeatedly praised the splendid work of the Royal
Artillery during the war and glowing tributes to the courage and resourcefulness
of British gunners have been paid by the other branches of the Army. Many a
critical battle has been turned into a success by the artillery, some of the batteries
of which have particularly distinguished themselves. Amongst them is the 134th,
of whose officers and men no fewer than five were mentioned in Sir John
French’s list, published on February 18th, of names of those whom he
recommended for gallant and distinguished conduct in the field. This story of
some of the work of our gunners is told by Corporal Ernest Henry Bean, of the
134th Field Battery, who was severely wounded and invalided home.]

You cannot exaggerate anything in this war. I am of a cheerful and hopeful

disposition, but I never thought I should live through the awful business; yet
here I am, cheerful still, though shot through both feet, and forced to hop
when I want to get from place to place.
I have had some strange adventures during the last few months, and one
of the oddest was in this good old Yarmouth. That was when the Germans
came and bombed us. But I will tell you about the air raid later. Here are
two eighteen-pounder shells, not from the front, but from practice-firing,
and it was such shells as these that made havoc amongst the German troops,
especially when we got to work on big bodies of them.
The war came upon us so suddenly that even now it seems amazing that
I left peaceful England on a summer day and went straight into the very
thick of things. There was no waiting, for I sailed from Southampton on the
day after Mons was fought, and when we got into action it was at Le
Cateau. We had had a short spell in a rest camp, then we had some hard
marching. Throughout the whole of one night we kept at it, and soon after
breakfast next morning we were in the thick of one of the most terrible
artillery fights that has ever been known. For six mortal hours we were
under an incessant shell-fire. The experience itself was enough to leave its
mark for ever on your mind, but I shall always remember it because of what
happened to our horses. They were not used to this awful business and they
stampeded, galloping all over the place, and defying every effort of the
drivers to control them. The horses bolted with the waggons and tore madly
over the country, taking pretty nearly everything that came in their way. The
drivers were on the horses, but they were powerless to control the
frightened animals.
The battery itself was in action. I was with the teams—on an open road
with half-a-dozen of them, and no protection whatever, for the road ran
between open fields. We were a fine target for the Germans, and they saw it
and began to shell us hell for leather. The fire was deadly and there is no
wonder that the horses bolted.
What was to be done? What could be done except make a dash for
shelter? I did my level best to get out of the open and seek shelter. But
shelter seemed far away, there was nothing near at hand, but in the distance
I saw something that seemed hopeful, so I galloped towards it with my
teams. We went furiously along, and as I got nearer to the object I could
make out that it was a long brick wall which separated an orchard from the
road.
For about a mile, under a constant and furious fire, I dashed on; then I
got to the wall, and instantly I drew in as many of the bolting horses as I
could lay hands on. It all happened so swiftly that it is not easy to tell how
this was done; but I know that I was safely mounted on my own horse when
the stampede began, and that I dashed at the bolting animals and grabbed as
many as I could, and that I hurried them to the shelter of the wall, and I
fancy that they were just about as glad of the protection as I was. The gallop
was a mad affair, and very likely it would never have ended as it did if all
the shells the Germans fired had burst; but some of them did not explode,
though I did not know of this till later, when I picked some of them up from
the ground.
While I was in the thick of this exciting business Farrier-Sergeant Scott
was rushing about and securing other runaway teams, and he did so well
and his work was considered so brilliant and important that the French gave
him the decoration of the Legion of Honour.
For the best part of an hour I was under cover of the wall, doing the best
I could with the horses, and it was a funny old job to keep them anything
like quiet with such a heavy fire going on all the time; yet so complete was
the protection that practically no damage was done, the worst that occurred
being the shattering of a pair of wheels by a bursting shell.
By the end of the hour both myself and the horses were pretty well
settling down; then things calmed down a bit. The Germans appeared to be
tired of pounding at us, and perhaps they thought that they had blown us to
pieces. At any rate we began to get out of it, and we had no sooner started to
do that than the firing instantly re-opened.
There was a village not far away and we made a dash for it; but we were
forced to clear out, for the enemy’s artillery set the little place on fire and
all the stacks and buildings were in flames. There was a good deal of
confusion and mixing up of all sorts of troops. I had lost touch with my own
lot and was ordered by a captain to join another column for the night, and
this I did. I joined the 2nd Brigade Ammunition Column and next day I was
with my own battery again, thankful to have got safely through a very
dangerous business.
Next day we picked up another position, and had no sooner done that
than information came that immense bodies of Germans were on the move
in our direction. The outlook was serious, because we were in the open and
there was nothing for it except a fight to the death. The Germans were
expected along a certain road and we made ready to fire at what is
practically point-blank range, using Fuses 0 and 2, so that at 500 and 1000
yards the masses of the enemy would have had the shells bursting amongst
them.
We had been through some tough times; but not in any situation which
was as unpromising as this. We knew that we could make a long stand, and
mow down the Germans as they swept along the open country; but we knew
also that in the end vastly superior forces must tell against us; but we held
our ground and the stern order went round, “Each take charge of your own
gun—and God help us!”
How long that awful strain lasted I cannot tell. It could not have been
long, but it seemed an eternity. While it lasted the strain was almost
unendurable; then it suddenly snapped, an immense relief came over us and
even the bravest and most careless amongst us breathed more freely when
we knew that the prospect of almost sure annihilation had passed, for the
German hosts, instead of coming by the expected road, had gone another
way.
 With lighter hearts we limbered up, and day after day, night after night,
for eleven days, we kept hard at it, marching and fighting, and whenever we
got into action it was against very heavy odds. I was with my own special
chum, Sergeant Charlie Harrison, and often enough, especially in the night-
time, we would walk alongside our horses and talk as we dragged ourselves
along—talk about anything that came into our minds, and all for the sake of
keeping awake and not falling down exhausted on the road; yet in spite of
everything we could do we would fall asleep. Sometimes we would
continue walking while practically asleep—we wanted to save our horses as
much as we could—and more than once, when I was riding, I went to sleep
and fell out of the saddle. There was one good thing, however, about the
shock—it acted as a very fine wakener-up. As for sleeping, when we got the
chance of it, we could do that anywhere—in ploughed fields, deep in mud
and water, and on the road itself.
All sorts of strange and unexpected things happened. While I was with
the Ammunition Column the Engineers were putting all their smartness and
skill into the building of a pontoon, and the Germans were specially
favouring them with “Coal Boxes.” This was my introduction to these big
brutes of shells, and it was not pleasant, especially as the column was not
more than twenty-five yards from the spot where they were exploding with
a terrific roar.
I was standing by my horse, feeling none too comfortable, when a big
shell burst and made awful havoc near me. A piece of it came and struck
me. I thought I was done for, then I looked around at myself, and found that
the two bottom buttons of my greatcoat had been torn away, but that no
further damage had been done. I was glad to have got off so easily, and just
as pleased to find that the horses had escaped.
At this time we were wanting food pretty badly, so that every ration
became precious. We were bivouacked when a file of infantrymen brought
in a German prisoner. Of course we gave him a share of pretty well
everything there was going, hot tea, bread, biscuits and bully beef, and he
did himself well. The prisoner was not exactly the sort to arouse
compassion, for he looked well fed and was dressed in a very smart
uniform. An officer came up, saw the captive, and said, “Do you think this
fellow looks as if he wanted anything?” Truth to tell, the fellow didn’t, and
as we did want things badly, he was sent somewhere else, and we were not
sorry to see him go.
 After being kept so constantly on the rack, we had a welcome and
remarkable change—we became cave-dwellers. We spent five days and
nights in some of the famous caves at Soissons, and had a thoroughly
comfortable and happy time. We had a fine chance of resting and enjoying
ourselves, and we made the most of it.
Originally these caves were occupied by very primitive people; lately
they were used as a French hospital, and the French made all sorts of
interesting pictures and carvings on the outsides, by way of decoration, then
the British took them over as billets. By nature the caverns were queer
gloomy places, but a good deal had been done to make them habitable, such
as fitting in doors and windows. There had been a lot of fighting near the
caves, with the result that there were graves at the very entrances of some of
these uncommon billets; but this had no effect on our spirits. We did not
allow ourselves to be depressed. What is the use of that in war-time? The
British soldier has the happy knack of making himself at home in all kinds
of odd places, and so we did in our billets in the rocks and hillside. We
called one of our caves the “Cave Theatre Royal,” and another the “Cave
Cinema,” and many a cheerful performance and fine sing-song we had. The
only light we had came from candles, but you can sing just as well by
candle-light as you can by big electric lamps, and I don’t suppose that ever
since the caves were occupied they rang with more cheerful sounds than
were heard when the British soldiers were joining in a chorus of the latest
popular song from home.
Another great advantage of the caverns was that they gave splendid
cover to our guns, and protection to ourselves, so that these five days and
nights gave us a real rest and complete change, and we were very sorry
when we left them and resumed the work of incessant fighting and
marching. We were constantly at the guns, and by way of showing what a
fearful business the artillery duels became at times, I may tell you that from
a single battery alone—that is, half-a-dozen guns—in one day and night we
fired more than 4000 rounds.
It was a vast change from the comfort and safety of the caverns, where
never a German shell reached us, to the open again, but we got our quiet
times and little recreations still, and one of these intervals we devoted to
football. We were at Messines, and so was a howitzer battery, and as we
happened to be rather slack, we got up a match. I am keen on football, and
things were going splendidly. I had scored two goals and we were leading
3-1, when the game came to a very sudden stop, for some German airmen
had seen us running about and had swooped down towards us, with the
result that the howitzer chaps were rushed into action and we followed
without any loss of time. We took it quite as a matter of course to let the
football go, and pound away at the Germans, who had so suddenly
appeared. It was getting rather late, so we gave the enemy about fifty
rounds by way of saying good-night. We always made a point of being civil
in this direction; but our usual dose for good-night was about fifteen rounds.
Talking of football recalls sad memories. On Boxing Day, 1913, when I
and an old chum were home on leave, I played in a football match, and at
the end of the game a photograph was taken of the team. On last Boxing
Day, if the roll of the team had been called, there would have been no
answer in several cases—for death and wounds have claimed some of the
eleven. Little did we think when we were being grouped for the picture that
it was the last muster for us as a team.
We had got through the tail end of summer and were well into autumn,
and soon the gloom of November was upon us, then came my change of
luck and I was knocked out. It was November 2, and almost as soon as it
was daylight we were in the thick of an uncommonly furious artillery duel,
one of the very worst I have seen. The Germans seemed to be making a
special effort that morning. They had got our position pretty accurately, and
they fired so quickly and had the range so well that we were in a real hell of
bursting shrapnel, indeed, the fragments were so numerous that it is little
short of a miracle that we were not wiped out.
We had not been long in action when a shell burst on the limber-pole,
smashed it in halves, penetrated through the wheel, blew the spokes of the
wheel away and shot me some distance into the air. For a little while I had
no clear idea of what had happened, then I found that three of us had been
wounded. My right boot had been blown to shreds, and there was a hole
right through the left boot. So much I saw at once—a mess of blood and
earth and leather; but of the extent of my wounds I knew very little, nor did
I trouble much about them at the time. The first thing I did was to get into
the main pit by the side of the gun, the captain and one or two chums
helping me, and there, though the pain of my wounds was terrible, I
laughed and chatted as best I could, and I saw how the battery kept at it
against big odds.
 Number 1, Sergeant Barker, who was in charge of the gun, had been
struck by a piece of shrapnel, which had fractured his leg; but though that
was quite enough to knock him out of time, he never flinched or faltered.
He held on to his gun, and went on fighting pretty much as if nothing had
happened. Number 2, Gunner Weedon, had been wounded through the
thigh, a bad injury about three inches long being caused; but he, too, held
gamely on.
I tried to crawl out of the pit; but could not do so, and I passed the time
by trying to cheer my chums, just as they did their best to help me to keep
my own spirits up.
The sergeant found time occasionally to turn round and ask how I was
getting on.
“It’s all right, old Bean,” he shouted cheerily. “Keep quiet. We can
manage without you.” And he went on firing, while the officers continued
to give orders and encourage the men.
I was getting very thirsty and craved for a drink; but I saw no prospect of
getting either water or anything else at such a time.
The sergeant noticed my distress and gave me the sweetest drink I ever
tasted, and that was a draught from his own canteen. He managed to stop
firing for a few seconds while he did this—just long enough to sling his
canteen round, let me take a pull, and sling it back. I learned afterwards that
throughout the whole of that day, in that inferno of firing and bursting
shells, the sergeant stuck to his gun and kept it at. For his courage and
tenacity he has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and no
man has ever more fully deserved it.
I was lying in the gun pit for about an hour, then a doctor came and my
wounds were dressed, but there was no chance of getting away for the time
being, so I had to wait till the firing ceased. At last a stretcher was brought,
and I was carried into a barn which was at the rear of our battery. One of the
bearers was
 [To face p. 222.
“WE WERE IN A REAL HELL OF BURSTING SHRAPNEL” (p. 221).

Sergeant E. Leet, the right-back in our battery team. He left the fight to
bear a hand with me, and as soon as I was safely in the barn he returned to
his post. He had no sooner done that than he too was struck down by a
wound in the ankle and had to be invalided home.
When I was carried away the major and the sergeant-major said good-
bye, and I rather think they expected that that was the last they would ever
see of me. I certainly felt bad, and I daresay I looked it; but I was quite
cheerful. I particularly felt it when I passed my chum, Charlie Harrison,
because for more than six years we had kept together without a break. We
shouted good-bye as we passed, and I did not know whether I should ever
see him again.
 When I reached the barn I wanted to get back to the battery, to be at my
own gun again, to bear a hand once more in the fighting that was still going
on and seemed as if it would never stop; but when I tried to stand up I
collapsed, through pain and loss of blood. Soon after this I heard that
Charlie Harrison too had been wounded. He was struck on the neck just
after I was carried away from the gun pit and had shouted good-bye to him;
but he bandaged himself and refused to leave the battery.
What became of him? Why, he got home from the front a day or two
ago, and you’ve just seen him. There he is. And let me show you this
shattered foot, to let you see how it is that I’m forced to hop when I want to
get about.
And now to get back to the air raid on the East Coast, which to me and
other soldiers from the front who saw it, was an extraordinary experience,
though I fancy that we took it more or less as a matter of course, because
you so soon get used to that kind of thing.
I had scarcely settled down at home when one night there was a fearful
commotion, caused by dull explosions. I was a bit taken aback, for I knew
what the sounds meant, and thought that I had done with the Germans and
fighting for a spell at any rate.
As soon as the sound of the explosions was heard, people rushed into the
streets—the most dangerous thing they could do—to see what it all meant,
and there were cries that the Germans had come.
So they had. They had come in a gas-bag or two, and were dropping
bombs on the good old town, which was lighted as usual, though that was
soon altered.
I hopped into the street—hopping is the only thing I can do at present—
and there I found that there was intense excitement and that women in
particular were badly scared. But really the thing did not upset me at all—it
was mere child’s play compared with what I had been through, so I made
myself useful, and hopped away and bought some brandy, which suited
some of the scared people very well—so well that there wasn’t a drop left
for myself.
The raid was soon over, and so was the scare, and I hopped back to the
house. There have been several frantic alarms since then, and more than
once I have been shaken out of my sleep and told that the Germans have
come again; but all I have said has been that it will take something far
worse than a German gas-bag raid to make me turn out of bed in the middle
of the night.
 CHAPTER XIX

WITH THE “FIGHTING FIFTH”

[One of the battalions which composed the 5th Division of the British
Expeditionary Force was the 1st East Surrey Regiment. It was on the 5th Division
that so much of the heavy fighting fell on the way to the Aisne, and in that heavy
fighting the East Surreys suffered very severely. This story is told by Private W.
G. Long, who rejoined his regiment from the Reserve. He has been wounded by
shrapnel, and has permanently lost the use of his right arm.]

When I went out with my old battalion, the Young Buffs, we were more
than 1,300 strong. When I came back, after six weeks’ fighting, we had lost
more than half that number. This simple fact will show you what the East
Surreys have done during the war, as part of the famous “Fighting Fifth”
which has been so greatly praised by Sir John French.
I had got up to start my day’s work after the August Bank Holiday; but
that day’s work was never done, for the postman brought the mobilisation
papers, and off I went to Kingston, after kissing my wife and baby good-
bye. Many a fine fellow who marched off with me is sleeping in or near a
little forest which we called “Shrapnel Wood.” That was near Missy, where
we crossed the Aisne on rafts.
We lost our first man soon after we landed in France, and before we met
the Germans. That was at Landrecies, where we went into French barracks,
and were told off into rooms which we called rabbit-hutches, because they
were so small—no bigger than a little kitchen at home. We were crowded
into these, and the only bed we had was a bit of straw on the floor. The
nights were bitterly cold, but the days were hot enough to melt us; so we
had a bathing parade, and had a fine old time in the canal till one of our
men was missed.
I looked around, and saw that one of our fellows was having artificial
respiration tried on him. He came round, and then he told us that another
man had gone under the water. Then began a really first-class diving
display, many of our chaps plunging into the canal to try to find the missing
soldier.
 At last one of the divers rose and shouted, “I’ve got him!” And, sure
enough, he had brought a poor chap to the surface. Lots of strong arms were
stretched out, and in a few seconds the rescued man was got on to the bank,
and every effort was made to bring him back to life. But nothing could be
done. The man was drowned, and we buried him. This little tragedy threw
quite a gloom over us till we moved away.
I am going to tell of a few of the things that happened and affected me
personally. They took place mostly when we were retiring, and some of
them occurred in the early days, when we were forging along in fearfully
bad weather. We were soaked to the skin, and at night did our best to get
some sort of shelter by building up the stacks of corn that had been cut for
drying, but it was no use. The rain came through so heavily that we gave the
task up, and waited for daylight again. When the day came it brought
another rain of shells and bullets with it. The place got too warm for us, so
we had to leave and retire again. We went on, getting as much shelter as we
could; and then we had to halt, and here the sorry discovery was made that
we had not a round of ammunition left. At this time there were advancing
towards us some men in khaki, and our sergeant, thinking they were our
own men, told us not to fire at them.
The order was not necessary, seeing that we had nothing to fire with. As
soon as these men got level with us on our flank they opened fire, and then
we knew that they were Germans, who had stripped some of our men, or
had picked up British caps and greatcoats which had been thrown aside.
In this desperate position a man who belonged to the Cornwall Light
Infantry was shot just below the left ear. He was knocked down, but got up,
and kept saying, “Help me! Help me!”
I shouted to him to lie down and keep under cover, but he took no notice,
and kept on calling for help. He came up to me, and when he was near
enough I pulled him down and forced him to lie on the ground. All this time
there was a very heavy fire. We were getting shots from the front and on our
flanks, and there was nothing for it but to get away as best we could.
I could not bear the thought of leaving this Cornwall man where he was,
so I took him up and began to carry him, but it was very slow going. It was
all uphill, the ground was sodden with rain, and I had to force a way
through a field of turnips, which were growing as high as my knees. It was
bad enough to make one’s own way through such a tangle as that; but I am
young and strong, and I managed to make progress, although I was hit five
different times—not hurt, but struck, a shot, for instance, hitting my cap,
another my water-bottle, and another the sleeve of my coat.
After going a long distance, as it seemed, and feeling utterly exhausted, I
put my man down under what I thought was safe shelter. I wanted to give
him a drink, but I could not do so, as the shot-hole in my water-bottle had
let the water run to waste.
At last we reached a roadway, where we saw some more of our men,
who had got there before us, and had commandeered a horseless cart and
filled it with wounded men.
I got the wounded man into the cart, and then off we all went. It was as
much as we could manage to get the cart along, for it was such a great big
thing; but we worked it willingly, the officers taking their turn in the shafts.
We dragged the cart along the heavy roads, but it was such hard going
that we saw that we should be forced to get a horse from somewhere; so we
looked around at the first farm we came to—and a sorry place it was, with
everything in confusion, and the animals about suffering terribly and
starving—and there we found a horse of the largest size.
With great difficulty we got together bits of harness, string and rope, and
tied the horse in the shafts with the ropes for traces, and when we had
finished we did not know whether we had harnessed the horse or tied the
cart on to it. Anyway, we got along very well after that.
The cart had amongst its wounded an infantry officer who had been
saved by one of our fellows, though the officer belonged to another
regiment. He had got entangled in some barbed wire, and, as he had been
wounded in the leg, he could not move either one way or the other. He was
absolutely helpless, and under a heavy fire.
Our fellow went out and got to the helpless officer, and, by sticking at it
and doing all he could, being himself pretty badly cut in the operation, he
freed the officer from the entanglement, and carried him safely up to the
cart. We were getting on very nicely with our little contrivance when we ran
into the 2nd Dragoons, but we soon left them behind us, and found
ourselves amongst some of our own transport. We joined up with it, adding
another and a very strange waggon to the column, and on we went until we
reached a large town and halted.
 During the whole of this time I had been carrying a canteen which had
belonged to a Frenchman. It was quite a big canteen, and I kept it filled with
apples, of which we got an enormous number, and on which at times we
had practically to live for two or three days together.
We had reached a stage of fighting when we had to make continuous
short rushes against the Germans, under hails of shrapnel. In making these
rushes it often happened that we sheltered behind a little sort of earthwork
which we threw up. We just made a bit of head cover and lay behind that;
but sometimes this head cover could not be made, and that was where I
scored with my Frenchman’s canteen.
During one of our rushes shrapnel burst right over my head, and one
fellow said to me, “I wouldn’t carry that thing, George, if I were you.” But,
having kept it for so long, I was not going to throw it away.
Away we went. I was carrying the canteen in my left hand, and my rifle
in the right; but I changed them over, and I had no sooner done that than
crash came a shell, and, in bursting, a fragment hit the canteen, and took a
great piece out of it. I should have been badly wounded myself, but I had
filled the canteen with earth, and so it had protected me and acted as a first-
rate cover. The man who was on my right received a nasty wound.
After this we had to advance over open country, where there was not so
much as a blade of grass for cover. We went on till we reached a ditch,
which was full of water. Some of us had to wade through it, but others, by
going farther back, were able to cross a tiny footbridge—one of those
narrow planks which only allow one man at a time to cross. The Germans
had a machine-gun trained at this little bridge so we lost no time in getting
off it. It was here that our captain was mortally wounded by a shot, and we
had other casualties in crossing the bridge.
From this point we had to climb to the top of a hill, which was so steep
that we had to dig our fixed bayonets into the ground to help us up. There
was a wood at the top of the hill, and there we took shelter; but we had no
sooner got amongst the trees than the shrapnel was on us again, causing
many casualties.
There were many funny incidents at this place, and one I particularly
remember was that there were three of us in a sort of heap, when a piece of
shell dropped just alongside. There was not any great force in it, because
before falling the piece had struck a tree; but, as it dropped, fellows started
turning up the collars of their coats, and rolling themselves into balls—just
as if things of that sort could make any difference to a bursting shell; but it
is amusing to see what men will do at such a time as that.
From this wood we got into what seemed a wide roadway between two
other woods, and here we were under a never-ending rain of bullets, which
hit the trees, sending splinters all over us, cutting branches off and
ploughing up the ground on every side. One of our officers said, “Keep
your heads down, lads,” and he had scarcely got the words out of his mouth
when he was shot in the body and killed, and we had to leave him where he
fell.
So heavy and continuous was the fire that we could not get on between
these two woods, and we had to try another way; so we started to go
through a vineyard, but we were forced to lie down. We sheltered as best we
could amongst the vines, with bullets coming and actually cutting off
bunches of grapes. Like good British soldiers, we made the best of the
business, for we were both hungry and thirsty, and we devoured a good
many of the bunches that were knocked off by the German bullets.
After this we got into an orchard, but we did not remain there long, as
the place was later on blown to smithereens. We hung on to the orchard till
it was dark, then we advanced farther into the wood, and again got through
into the open, and lay down to try and get some sleep; but that was almost
impossible, because it was raining and perishingly cold, and we had nothing
at all for cover. Then, in whispers, we were ordered to get out as silently as
we possibly could.
At first I could not understand the meaning of this secrecy, but it soon
became known that we had been actually sleeping amongst the enemy,
though we were not aware of this until we were again on the move. We
crept about like a lot of mice, till we reached a village, where we were to
get some breakfast.
We were settling down, and making ourselves comfortable under a wall
which gave us some cover. There were some men from another regiment
with us, and we thought we were going to have a good time, for we had got
hold of some biscuits and jam. Then over the wall came a shell, which
exploded and wounded about seven men from the other regiment. We did
not stop for any more breakfast, and some of the men who had had nothing
to eat did not trouble to get anything, and they went without food for the
rest of the day.
We went back to the wood, and there we soon again found the Germans,
and plenty of them. We fired at them for all we were worth, after which we
advanced a little, and came across so many dead that we had to jump over
them every pace we took. One thing which particularly struck me then, and
which I remember now, was the great size of some of these German
soldiers. At a little distance they looked just like fallen logs.
After that our officer called us together to wait for reinforcements. I
thought I would have a look around me, and while I was doing so I saw one
German running off to our left, about fifteen yards away. I took aim and
fired, and down he went. I got down on my knee and unloaded my rifle,
when I saw another German going in the same direction. I was just getting
ready to take aim again, but this time I did not fire—in fact, I did not even
get to the aim, for I felt something hit my arm.
For the moment I thought that some chap behind me had knocked me
with his rifle or his foot. I turned round, but there was no one behind me, so
I concluded that I had been hit. I stood up, and then my arm began to
wobble, and the blood streamed out of my sleeve. Some one shouted,
“You’ve got it, George.” And I replied: “Yes; in the arm somewhere, but
where I don’t know.”
I did my best to get back again, and then a fellow came, and ripped the
sleeve open and dressed my arm, and there was all my elbow joint laid
open, and some of the bones broken. This chap wanted to take me back to
the village, but I said I was all right, although in a sense I was helpless. We
started going back, and we got to the first house, where we saw a poor old
man and his daughter who had been there all through the fighting. The place
was filled with wounded, and the two were doing their best for them.
I asked for a drink, for I was almost dying of thirst, and I got some
whisky. While I was drinking it a shell burst in the middle of the road, and
sent the mud and stones everywhere; so I shifted my quarters, and went
along to a big house which had been a fine place, but it had been pulled to
pieces, and was now being used as a hospital. The place itself gave no
protection, but we found a cellar and crowded into it, and there we watched
the Germans blowing the temporary hospital to pieces.
 The night came, and it was terrible to hear the poor chaps moaning with
pain. I was in pain myself now, but my sufferings were a mere nothing
compared with those of some of the men around me. It seemed as if the day
would never break, but at last it came, and by that time some of the poor
fellows who had been making such pitiful noises were no more. Some time
after that, however, I got away in a field ambulance.
When we were at Le Cateau many spies were caught. I saw several of
them. They were young chaps, dressed up as women and as boys and girls,
and it was not very easy to detect them. One was disguised as a woman,
with rather a good figure. I saw this interesting female when she was
captured by our artillery. The gunners had their suspicions aroused, with the
result that they began to knock the lady about a bit, and her wig fell off.
Then her figure proved to be not what it seemed, for the upper front part of
it was composed of two carrier-pigeons! I did not see the end of that batch
of spies, but a battery sergeant-major afterwards told me that they had been
duly shot.
One of the most extraordinary things I saw was the conduct of a man
who had had his right arm shot off from above the elbow. I was standing
quite near him, and expected that he would fall and be helpless. Instead of
doing that, he turned his head and looked at the place where the arm should
have been. I suppose he must have been knocked off his balance by what
had happened. At any rate, he gave a loud cry, and instantly started to run as
fast as I ever saw a man go. Two or three members of the Royal Army
Medical Corps at once gave chase, with the object of securing him and
attending to him. The whole lot of them disappeared over some rising
ground, and what happened to them I do not know.
I saw many fellows who had queer tales to tell of what had happened to
them. One chap, a rifleman, who was in the ship coming home, was so
nervous that the slightest noise made him almost jump out
 [To face p. 234.
“I TOOK HIM UP AND BEGAN TO CARRY HIM” (p. 227).

of his skin. And well it might, for his nerves had been shattered. A shell had
buried itself in the ground just in front of him and exploded, blowing him
fifteen feet into the air, and landing him in a bed of mud. He was so
completely stunned that he lay there for about eight hours, scarcely moving,
though he was not even scratched. He came round all right, but was a
nervous wreck, and had to be invalided.
 CHAPTER XX

THE VICTORY OF THE MARNE

[One of the most moving statements in the earlier official reports dealing with
the war was that about the fighting at Mons and elsewhere, which cost us 6000
men, and no paragraph was more stirring than that relating to Landrecies, a quiet
little French town on the Sambre. “In Landrecies alone,” the report said, “a
German infantry brigade advanced in the closest order into the narrow street,
which they completely filled. Our machine-guns were brought to bear on this
target from the end of the town. The head of the column was swept away, a
frightful panic ensued, and it is estimated that no fewer than 800 to 900 dead and
wounded Germans were lying in this street alone.” The story of that furious
combat and the subsequent operations on the Marne is told by Corporal G.
Gilliam, of the Coldstream Guards. On September 6, in conjunction with the
French, the British assumed the offensive, and, after a four days’ desperate
struggle, which is known as the Battle of the Marne, the Germans were driven
back to Soissons, with enormous losses.]

It was early on the afternoon of August 26 when we entered Landrecies,

which is a little garrison town, consisting mostly of a single street in which
there are three cross-roads. We were billeted in the people’s houses, and for
the first time in three days we had a drop of tea and a bit of dinner in
comfort, and to crown our satisfaction we were told we could lie down and
rest, but we were to have our bayonets fixed and rifles by our sides and kits
ready to put on.
We were soon down to it and sound asleep. It was about eight o’clock
when some of us woke, and after a smoke were off to sleep again, but not
for long, for almost immediately we heard the sound of a motor-cycle, and
knew that the rider was travelling at a terrific rate.
Nearer and nearer came the sound, and the rider himself swept round the
corner of the street. He never stopped nor slackened speed; he simply
shouted one word as he vanished, and that was “Germans!” Only one word,
but enough.
Rifles in hand, we rushed to the top of the street and lined the three
cross-roads, lying down. Our officer, who was standing up behind us, said,
“Lie still, men”; and we did—perfectly still, not a man moving. All at once,
out of the darkness, an officer came and cried in English to our commander,
“Surrender!”
“We don’t surrender here!” our officer answered. “Take that!”—and
instantly shot him through the head with his revolver.
Our officer’s shot had scarcely died away when crash went a German
artillery gun, and a lyddite shell burst right over us. This was our first
experience of lyddite, and the fumes nearly choked us.
“Lie still, boys—don’t move!” said our officer; and we lay low.
Just then, from the opposite direction, we heard the sound of horses and
a waggon, in the distance, it seemed; but soon it was very near, and to our
great joy there dashed up the street one of the guns of the 17th Field
Battery. There was a shout of “Into action! Left wheel!” And in truly
magnificent style that gun was almost instantly laid and ready for action.
Shells now came upon us rapidly, wounding several of our men; but our
maxim gunners had got to work, and very soon enormous numbers of
Germans were put beyond the power of doing any further mischief.
Many splendid things were done that night at Landrecies; but there was
nothing finer than the work of our maxim-gunner Robson, who was on our
left. Our machine-guns were by now at our end of the town, and they had a
solid mass of Germans to go at. Robson was sitting on his stool, and as soon
as the officer ordered “Fire!” his maxim hailed death. It literally was a hail
of fire that met the packed Germans, and swept down the head of the
column, so that the street was choked in an instant with the German dead.
Those who lived behind pushed on in desperation—shoved on by the
masses still further behind, the darkness being made light by the fire of the
maxims and the enemy’s rifles. Those behind, I say, pressed on, with fearful
cries, but only to be mown down and shattered, so that the street became
more than ever glutted with the dead and wounded. The Germans were
thrown into frenzy, and if sheer weight of men could have driven the head
of the column on to us not a British soldier could have lived that night at
Landrecies.
Meanwhile, we had been ordered to hold our fire. There were only 600
of us opposed to an immense body of Germans; but the maxims were doing
annihilating work, and the artillery had got into action.
 When the gun of the 17th had got the order to fire we heard a gunner
shout: “Watch me put that gun out of action!”—meaning a German gun
which had been brought up and laid against us. He fired, and the most
marvellous thing happened, for the shell from it went right down the muzzle
of the German weapon and shattered it to pieces.
Then we heard a shout, and before we could look round about 4000
German infantry were charging us, with horns blowing and drums beating
—adding to the fearful din.
“Don’t shoot, boys,” shouted our officer, “till I give the word!”
On the living mass of Germans came. They rushed up to within 80 yards
of us; then the order rang out: “Fire!”
Again the Germans got it—fifteen rounds to the minute from each rifle,
for the front rank men had their loading done for them. As soon as a rifle
was emptied it was handed to the rear and a fresh loaded rifle was handed
back. In this way the rifles were kept from getting too hot, and an incessant
fire was poured into the Germans.
In spite of this hail, a few Germans managed to break through their walls
of dead and wounded. One of them, disguised as a French officer, and
wanting us to think he had been a prisoner, but had just broken away from
the Germans, rushed up to Robson and patted him on the shoulder and said:
“Brave fellow!” And with that he whipped round his sword and killed our
maxim gunner on the spot; but he himself was instantly shot down by our
enraged fellows.
There was another case of treachery, this time, unhappily, from inside
our ranks. Our guide, a man claiming to be a Frenchman, at about one
o’clock in the morning, turned traitor, and went and told the Germans how
many there were of us, and by way of indicating our position he fired a
haystack; but he had no sooner done that than two bullets settled him.
One of our corporals dashed away to put the fire out, but before he
reached the haystack he was killed. It was at this time that Private Wyatt, of
my company, rushed out—everything was done at a rush—and brought in a
wounded officer. The colonel, who was on his horse, and saw what had
happened, said: “Who is that brave man?” He was told, and afterwards
Wyatt was taken before the general and recommended for a decoration.
Hour after hour, all through the time of darkness, and until daylight
came, that terrible fight went on. For seven long hours a few hundred
British Guards had kept at bay an enormous body of Germans—and at the
end of the firing we had killed far more than the whole of our force
numbered when the battle began. We had given them wholesale death from
our machine-guns, our rifles, and our artillery, and they had faced it—they
had been driven on to it. Now they were to have the bayonet.
We gave them two charges; but they didn’t stop long, for as soon as they
saw the cold steel on the ends of our rifles they were off like a shot,
throwing down a lot of rifles and equipment. When this happened it was
between five and six o’clock on the morning of the 27th, and we then got
the order to retire.
We were told that we had lost 126 in killed and wounded. That was a
heavy list, but not so big as we had expected, bearing in mind the furious
nature of the fight. The marvel was that we had not been wiped out, and we
should certainly have been in a very serious state if it had not been for the
17th Field Battery. There is this to be said, too: if the Germans had broken
through our lines it would have meant that, in all probability, the whole
Second Division of our army would have been cut up.
We fell in and were soon on the march again, retiring, and we marched
as fast as we could go till we halted at a rather large town about ten miles
from Landrecies. Here we were in clover, in a way of speaking, because we
sheltered in a clay-pit where the French had been making bricks, and we all
sat down and waited for our tea of German shells.
They soon came and we were on the move again, and we were
constantly at it, retiring and fighting, until we halted about thirty miles from
Paris; then we were told that after retiring another dozen miles it would be
our turn to advance.
Didn’t we cheer? It was glorious to hear we were going to chase the
Germans instead of their chasing us. At this time we had our first wash for a
fortnight, and it was as good as having a thousand pounds given to us.
The fiercest fighting of the war has taken place on Sundays, and it was
on a Sunday that the Battle of the Marne began. The Germans had had the
biggest surprise of their lives on a Sunday, and that was at Mons. Though
we had been kept on the go because they outnumbered us so hopelessly, we
mauled them mercilessly on the retreat, teaching them many bitter lessons.
When we got to the Marne and were able to tackle them on equal terms,
they scarcely had a look in. The Germans had almost reached the forts of
Paris, and, I daresay, had their bands ready to play them into the city. Soon,
however, they were hurrying back on their tracks a good deal faster than
they had come. We heard the German bands playing a good many times, but
every time we heard the music it was farther away from Paris.
We covered such big tracks of country, and saw so many great
happenings, that it is the most difficult thing in the world to know where to
start a story of the Marne; but I will come down to the time just before the
battle, when we were still retiring, and had got used to marching twenty or
twenty-five miles a day. We had left the Germans very sore for coming too
close to us, and we had gone through a small town and entered a great
wood.
While we were in the wood I had to fall out. Almost instantly I heard the
sound of talking which wasn’t English, and in the distance I saw six
Germans coming after me as hard as they could. I thought it was all up with
me, but I said “Come on, chum, let’s clear!”—“chum” being my rifle,
which I had placed on the ground. I snatched it up and sprang behind a tree,
and felt fairly safe. It’s wonderful what a feeling of security a good rifle and
plenty of ammunition give you. I waited till the Germans got within a
hundred yards of me; then with a good aim I fetched down two; but my
position was becoming very critical, as the other four dodged from tree to
tree, watching for a chance to pot me, and it looked very much as if they
wouldn’t have long to wait. I don’t know what would have happened, but to
my intense relief three men of the 17th Field Battery, which was passing,
rushed up and shouted, “Don’t move. We’ll have ’em!”
By this time the four Germans were within about fifty yards, continually
sniping at me—how I blessed them for being such bad shots!—and at last
they came out into the open and made straight in my direction. But they
only dashed about twenty yards, for my rescuers put “paid” to the four of
them, and saved me from being made a prisoner and worse, far worse, for
by that time we had seen proof enough of the monstrous things they did to
men they captured—things you might expect from savages, but certainly
not from soldiers of a nation that boasts so much of its civilisation.
The last day of our retirement was September 4, and on that day we
never saw the enemy. We had crossed and recrossed the River Marne, and
had blown up bridges as we retired; but the Germans threw their own
bridges over the river with amazing speed, and kept up the pursuit.
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