Part 8

We lost terribly in the retreat from Mons, of which you have heard by now, but artillery always stands to lose in retreats, because we play such a big part in getting the other men away and we quite made up our minds that we would have to pay forfeit then. Without boasting, I can say that it was the way the guns were handled that made it so easy for our lads to get out of the German trap. There was once or twice when it looked as though it were all up with us, and some of our chaps were fair down in the mouth over it; but I think now they didn’t make sufficient allowance for the steadiness of all arms of our service; and, between ourselves, I think they had got the usual notions about the splendid soldiering qualities of the German army. They know better now, and though it’s bad to get chesty about that sort of thing, we are all pretty confident that with a sporting chance we stand to win all the time.

* * * * *

_Letter 66.--From Private J. Toal:_

It’s tired we all were when we got through that week of fighting and marching from Mons; but after we’d had a taste of rest for a day or two, by the saints, we were ready for the ugly Germans again, and we’ve been busy ever since drilling holes in them big enough to let out the bad that’s in them. You wouldn’t believe the way they have burned and destroyed the holy churches everywhere they went, and there’s many an Irish lad betwixt here and the frontier has registered a vow that he will not rest content till he’s paid off that score against the men who would lay hands on God’s altars.

* * * * *

_Letter 67.--From Private W. Green:_

We see more Germans than you could count in the day, but they are now very funky about it, and they will never wait for a personal interview with one of our men, especially if he has a lance or a bayonet handy, and naturally you don’t go out German-hunting without something of the kind with you, if only just for luck. When they must face us they usually get stuck away somewhere where they are protected by more guns than you ever set eyes on, and likewise crowds of machine guns of the Maxim pattern, mounted on motors. These are not now so troublesome, for they are easy to spot out in the open, and our marksmen quickly pick off the men serving them, so the Germans are getting a bit shy about displaying them. Something we heard the other day has put new life into us; not that we were downhearted before, but what I mean shows that we are going to have all we wished for very soon, and though we can’t tell you more you may be sure that we are going on well.

* * * * *

_Letter 68.--From Private G. A. Turner, to his father, Mr. J. W. Turner, of Leeds_ (_Published in the “Leeds Mercury”_):

I am still living, though a bit knocked about. I got a birthday present from the Kaiser. I was wounded on the 23rd. So it was a near thing, was it not? I got your letter at a place called Moroilles, in France, about five miles from Landrecies, where our troops have retired.

On Sunday, 23rd, we had rifle inspection at 11 a.m., and were ordered to fall in for bathing parade at 11.30. While we were waiting for another company to return from the river the Germans commenced to shell the town. We fell in about 1.0 p.m., an hour and a half afterwards, to go to the scene of the attack. Shells were bursting in the streets as we went. We crossed a bridge over the canal under artillery fire, and stood doing nothing behind a mill on the bank for some time.

Then someone cried out that the Germans were advancing along the canal bank, and our company were ordered to go along. We thought we were going to check the Germans, but we found out afterwards that a company of our own regiment were in position further along on the opposite side of the canal, and we were being sent out to reinforce them.

There was no means of crossing the canal at that point, so it was an impossibility. As soon as we started to move we were spotted by the Germans, who opened fire with their guns at about five hundred yards with shrapnel, and the scene that followed beggars description. Several of us were laid full length behind a wooden fence about half an inch thick. The German shells burst about three yards in front of it. It was blown to splinters in about ten minutes. None of us expected to get out alive.

They kept us there about an hour before they gave us the word to retire. I had just turned round to go back when I stopped one. It hits you with an awful thump, and I thought it had caught me at the bottom of the spine, as it numbed my legs for about half an hour.

When I found I could not walk I gave it up. Just after, I got my first view of the Germans. They were coming out of a wood about 400 yards away all in a heap together, so I thought as I was done for I would get a bit of my own back, and I started pumping a bit of lead into them.

I stuck there for about three-quarters of an hour, and fired all my own ammunition and a lot belonging to two more wounded men who were close to me--about 300 rounds altogether, and as it was such a good target I guess I accounted for a good lot of them.

Then I suddenly discovered I could walk, and so I set off to get back. I had to walk about 150 yards in the open, with shrapnel bursting around me all the way, but somehow or other I got back without catching another. It was more than I expected, I can assure you, and I laughed when I got in the shelter of the mill again.

I was very sorry to have to leave the other chaps who were wounded, but as I could only just limp along I could not help them in any way. They were brought in later by stretcher bearers.

A man who was at Paardeburg and Magersfontein, in South Africa, said they were nothing to what we got that Sunday. Out of 240 men of my company only about twenty were uninjured.

* * * * *

_Letter 69.--From an Infantryman in hospital_ (_Published in the “Aldershot News”_):

I found myself mixed up with a French regiment on the right. I wanted to go forward with them, but the officer in charge shook his head and smiled, “They will spot you in your khaki and put you out in no time,” he said in English; “make your way to the left; you’ll find your fellows on that hill.” I watched the regiment till it disappeared; then I made my way across a field and up a big avenue of trees. The shells were whistling overhead, but there was nothing to be afraid of. Halfway up the avenue there was a German lancer officer lying dead by the side of the road. How he got there was a mystery, because we had seen no cavalry. But there he lay, and someone had crossed his hands on his breast, and put a little celluloid crucifix in his hands. Over his face was a beautiful little handkerchief--a lady’s--with lace edging. It was a bit of a mystery, because there wasn’t a lady for miles that I knew of.

* * * * *

_Letter 70.--From Sapper H. Mugridge, R.E., to his mother at Uckfield:_

We met the Germans at Landrecies on Sunday. We had a fifteen-hour battle. It was terrible. There were 120,000 Germans and only 20,000 of us, but our men fought well. We blew up six bridges. Laid our charges in the afternoon, and the whole time we were doing it were not hit. After we had got everything ready we got back into cover and waited until 1.30 on Monday morning, until our troops had got back over the river, and then we blew up the bridges. We retired about thirty miles. The town where we stopped on Sunday was a beautiful place, but the Germans destroyed it. Close to where I was a church had been used as a hospital, and our wounded were coming by the dozens. But, terrible to say, the Germans blew the place up. They have no pity. They kill our wounded and drive the people before them.

* * * * *

_Letter 71.--From Sapper H. Mugridge, R.E._ (_Second letter, published in the “Sussex Daily News”_):

We were laying our gun cotton--ten of us were the last to leave, and the Germans stopped us. We had to run for it down the main street of the town of Landrecies, and, being dark, we could not see where we were going. We got caught in some telegraph wires which had been put across the street. We had to cut them away with our bayonets. On Monday morning, when things were quieter, we went nearly into the German lines. We could hear them giving orders. Our job was to put barbed wire across the road. I was thankful to get out of it. We could see the Germans burning their dead. They must have lost a few thousand men, as our troops simply mowed them down.

I saw one sergeant kill fourteen Germans, one after the other. They came up in fifties, all in a cluster, and you couldn’t help hitting them. They were only 400 yards from us all day on Sunday. They are very cruel. Our people used a church for a hospital, and it was filled with our wounded, but the place was shelled and knocked down. They stabbed a good many of our men while lying on the battlefield. They have no respect for the Red Cross. To see women and children driven from home and walking the roads is terrible--old men and women just the same. At the town where we were we got cut off from our people--eighteen of us--and the houses were being toppled over by the German artillery. The people clung around us, asking us to stay with them, but it was no good. When we left, the town was in flames. But our men did fight well. You never saw anything so cool in your life. Anyone would have thought it was a football match, for they were joking and laughing with one another.

* * * * *

_Letter 72.--From John Baker, of the Royal Flying Corps, to his parents at Boston, Lincolnshire:_

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. I shall always remember the ten minutes that followed. The next I remembered was that I was in a barn. I was removed to Boulogne, and afterwards to Netheravon, being conveyed from Southampton by motor ambulance.

* * * * *

_Letter 73.--From Private G. Rider:_

The Germans are good and bad as fighters, but mostly bad so far as I have seen. They are nearly all long distance champions in the fighting line, and won’t come too near unless they are made to. Yesterday we had a whole day of it in the trenches, with the Germans firing away at us all the time. It began just after breakfast, and we were without food of any kind until we had what you might call a dainty afternoon tea in the trenches under shell fire. The mugs were passed round with the biscuits and the “bully” as best they could by the mess orderlies, but it was hard work getting through without getting more than we wanted of lead rations. My next-door neighbour, so to speak, got a shrapnel bullet in his tin mug, and another two doors off had his biscuit shot out of his hand when he was fool enough to hold it up to show it to a chum in the next trench.

We are ready for anything that comes our way, and nothing would please us better than a good big stand-up fight with the Germans on any ground they please. We are all getting used to the hard work of active service, and you very seldom hear complaints from anybody. The grousers, who are to be found in nearly every regiment, seem to be on holiday for the war.

* * * * *

_Letter 74.--From Private Martin O’Keefe, of the Royal Irish Rifles, to his friends at Belfast:_

Our part in the fighting was limited almost entirely to covering the retreat by a steady rifle fire from hastily-prepared trenches. We were thrown out along an extended front, and instructed to hold our ground until the retiring troops were signalled safe in the next position allotted them. When this was done our turn came, and we retired to a new position, our place being taken by the light cavalry, who kept the Germans in check as long as they could and then fell back in their turn. The Germans made some rather tricky moves in the hope of cutting us off while we were on this dangerous duty, but our flanks were protected by cavalry, French and English, and they did not get very far without having to fight. When they found the slightest show of resistance they retreated, and tried to find an easier way of getting in at us. The staff were well pleased with the way we carried out the duty given to us, and we were told that it had saved our Army from very serious loss at one critical point. We put in some wonderfully effective shooting in the trenches, and the men find it is much easier making good hits on active service than at manœuvres. The Germans seemed to think at first that we were as poor shots as they are, and they were awfully sick when they had to face our deadly fire for the first time.

* * * * *

_Letter 75.--From Sergeant W. Holmes:_

We are off again, this time with some of the French, and it’s enough to give you fits to hear the Frenchmen trying to pick up the words of “Cheer Boys, Cheer,” which we sing with great go on the march. They haven’t any notion of what the words mean, but they can tell from our manner that they mean we’re in good heart, and that’s infectious here. We lost our colonel and four other officers in our fight on Tuesday. It was the hottest thing we were ever in. The colonel was struck down when he was giving us the last word of advice before we threw ourselves on the enemy. We avenged him in fine style. His loss was a great blow to us, for he was very popular. It’s always the best officers, somehow, that get hit the first, and there’s not a man in the regiment who wouldn’t have given his life for him. He was keen on discipline, but soldiers don’t think any less of officers who are that. The German officers are a rum lot. They don’t seem in too great a hurry to expose their precious carcasses, and so they “lead” from the rear all the time. We see to it that they don’t benefit much by that, you may be sure, and when it’s at all possible we shoot at the skulking officers. That probably accounts for the high death rate among German officers. They seem terribly keen on pushing their men forward into posts of danger, but they are not so keen in leading the way, except in retreat, when they are well to the fore. Our cavalry are up to that little dodge, and so, when they are riding out to intercept retreating Germans, they always give special attention to the officers.

* * * * *

_Letter 76.--From Corporal J. Hammersley:_

The Germans in front of us are about done for, and that’s the truth of it. They have got about as much fighting as humans can stand, and it is about time they realised it. I don’t agree with those who think this war is going to last for a long time. The pace we go at on both sides is too hot, and flesh and blood won’t stand it for long. My impression is that there will be a sudden collapse of the Germans that will astonish everybody at home; but we are not leaving much to chance, and we do all we can to hasten the collapse. The Germans aren’t really cut out for this sort of work. They are proper bullies, who get on finely when everybody’s lying bleeding at their feet, but they can’t manage at all when they have to stand up to men who can give them more than they bargain for.

* * * * *

_Letter 77.--From Lance-Corporal T. Williams:_

We are now getting into our stride and beginning to get a little of our own back out of the Germans. They don’t like it at all now that we are nearer to them in numbers, and their men all look like so many “Weary Willies”; they are so tired. You might say they have got “that tired feeling” bad, and so they have. Some of them just drop into our arms when we call on them to surrender as though it were the thing they’d been waiting for all their lives.

One chap who knows a little English told us he was never more pleased to see the English uniform in all his life before, for he was about fed up with marching and fighting in the inhuman way the German officers expect their men to go on. When we took him to camp he lay down and slept like a log for hours; he was so done up.

That’s typical of the Germans now, and it looks as though the Kaiser were going to have to pay a big price for taxing his men so terribly. You can’t help being sorry for the poor fellows. They all say they were told when setting out that it would be child’s play beating us, as our army was the poorest stuff in the world. Those who had had experience in England didn’t take that in altogether, but the country yokels and those who had never been outside their own towns believed it until they had a taste of our fighting quality, and then they laughed with the other side of their faces.

That’s the Germans all over, to “kid” themselves into the belief that they have got a soft thing, and then when they find it’s too hard, to run away from it. Our lads have made up their minds to give them no rest once we get on to them, and they’ll get as much of the British Army as they can stand, and maybe a little more. The French are greatly pleased with the show we made in the field, and are in much better spirits than they were.

* * * * *

_Letter 78.--From a Non-commissioned Officer of Dragoons:_

All our men--in fact, the whole British Army--are as fit as a fiddle, and the lads are as keen as mustard. There is no holding them back. At Mons we were under General Chetwode, and horses and men positively flew at the Germans, cutting through much heavier mounts and heavier men than ours. The yelling and the dash of the Lancers and Dragoon Guards was a thing never to be forgotten. We lost very heavily at Mons, and it is a marvel how some of our fellows pulled through and positively frightened the enemy. We did some terrible execution, and our wrists were feeling the strain of heavy riding before sunset. With our tunics unbuttoned, we had the full use of our right arm for attack and defence.

After Mons I went with a small party scouting, and we again engaged about twenty cavalry, cut off from their main body. We killed nine, wounded six, and gave chase to the remaining five, who, in rejoining their unit, nearly were the means of trapping us. However, our men dispersed and hid in a wood until they fell in with a squadron of the ----, and so reached camp in safety. After that a smart young corporal accompanied me to reconnoitre, and we went too far ahead, and were cut off in a part of the country thick with Uhlans. As we rode in the direction of ---- two wounded men were limping along, both with legs damaged, one from the Middlesex and the other Lancashire Fusiliers, and so we took them up.

Corporal Watherston took one behind his saddle and I took the other. The men were hungry, and tattered to shreds with fighting, but in fine spirits. We soon came across a small village, and I found the curé a grand sportsman and full of pluck and hospitality. He seemed charmed to find a friend who was English, and told me that the Germans were dressed in the uniforms of British soldiers, which they took from the dead and from prisoners in order to deceive French villagers, who in many places in that district had welcomed these wolves in sheep’s clothing. We were warned that the enemy would be sure to track us up to the village. The curé said he could hide the two wounded men in the crypt of his church and put up beds for them. It has a secret trapdoor, and was an ancient treasure-house of a feudal lord, whose castle we saw in ruins at the top of the hill close by.

Then he hid away our saddlery and uniforms in the roof of a barn, and insisted upon our making a rest-chamber of the tower of his church, which was approached by a ladder, which we were to pull up to the belfry as soon as we got there. He smuggled in wine and meat and bread and cakes, fruit and cigarettes, with plenty of bedding pulled up by a rope. We slept soundly, and the owls seemed the only other tenants, who resented our intrusion. No troops passed through the village that night. In the morning the curé came round at six o’clock, and we heard him say Mass. After that we let down the ladder, and he came up with delicious hot chocolate and a basket of rolls and butter.

Our horses he had placed in different stables a mile apart, and put French “fittings” on them, so as to deceive the enemy. He thinks we are well away from the main body of the German army moving in the direction of Paris, but will not hear of our leaving here for at least three days. But I cried, “Curé, we are deserters!” The old man wept and said, “Deserters, no, no--saviours, saviours; you have rescued France from the torments of slavery.”

However, we have now secured complete disguises as French cultivateurs--baggy corderoy trousers, blue shirts, boots, stockings, belt, hat, cravat, everything to match--and as we have not shaved for two weeks, and are bronzed with the sun, I think that the corporal and myself can pass anywhere as French peasants, if only he will leave all the talking to me.

The two wounded soldiers don’t wish us to leave them, because I am interpreter, and not a soul speaks English in the village. So we have explained to the curé that we shall stay here until our comrades are able to walk, and then the party of four will push our way out somewhere on horseback and get to the coast. The sacristan at once offered to be our guide, and it is arranged that we take a carrier’s wagon which travels in this district and drive our own horses in it, and pick up two additional mounts at a larger village on the way to the coast.

We must get back as soon as ever we can. Nothing could be kinder than the people here, but this is not what we came to France for, and hanging about in a French village is not exactly what a soldier calls “cricket.”

You cannot imagine how complete the Germans are in the matter of rapid transport. Large automobiles, such as the railway companies have for towns round Harrogate and Scarborough, built like char-à-bancs, carry the soldiers in batches of fifty, so that they are as fresh as paint when they get to the front. But in point of numbers I think one of our side is a fair match for four of the enemy. I hope that the British public are beginning to understand what this war means. The German is not a toy terrier, but a bloodhound absolutely thirsty for blood.

* * * * *

_Letter 79.--From Private Tom Savage, to his relatives at Larne:_

At Sea.

Just a line to let you know that we are landing outside ----. They kept us without any knowledge of how and where we were going till the last moment. I am quite well and extra specially fit. It is good fun on a troopship, and we are going to have a nice little holiday on the Continent. I’ll be able to “swank French” when I come back. I’ll write a good long letter when I settle down. I’m writing this at tea time just before we land. I have got two very nice chums, Jack Wright, the footballer, who has seen service before, and Billy Caughey, both of Belfast.

In France.

I am writing this note while on outpost duty. I can’t say where we are, or anything like that, but I am in the best of health and enjoying the life. I am getting a fine hand at French. There is plenty of food and the people are all very nice. It’s great fun trying to understand them. Plenty of fruit here, pears and apples galore, and as for bread big long rolls and rings of it, and all very cheap. When you happen to be riding through a town the people give you cigarettes, fruit, chocolates, and cider.