Part 2

The first stretch was easy. Some rifle bullets hummed and buzzed round and over us, but nothing to matter. We almost began to vote war a dull thing. We took up our position under a natural earthwork. We had been there a couple of minutes when a really terrific fire opened. We were told afterwards that we were not the target--that it was an accident that they happened to have stumbled on the exact range. But even if we had known this at the time, it would not have made much difference. It was as if a scythe of bullets passed directly over our heads about a foot above the earthworks. It came in gusts, whistling and sighing. The men behaved very well. A good many of them were praying and crossing themselves. A man next to me said: “It’s hell fire we’re going into.” It seemed inevitable that any man who went over the bank must be cut neatly in two. Valentine was sent to find out if Bernard was ready on the far left. Then, in a lull, Tom gave the word and we scrambled over and dashed on to the next bank. Bullets were singing round us like a swarm of bees, but we had only a short way to go, and got, all of us, I think, safely to the next shelter, where we lay and gasped and thought hard.

Our next rush was worse, for we had a long way to go through turnips. The prospect was extremely unattractive; we thought that the fire came from the line of trees which we were ordered to take, and that we should have to stand the almost impossible fire from which the first bank had sheltered us. This was not the case, as the German trenches, we heard afterwards, were about 300 yards behind the trees, but their rifle fire and their shells cut across. We had not gone more than about 100 yards, at a rush and uphill, when a shell burst over my head. I jumped to the conclusion that I was killed, and fell flat. I was ashamed of myself before I reached the ground, but, looking round, found that everybody else had done the same.

The turnips seemed to offer a sort of cover, and I thought of the feelings of the partridges, a covey of which rose as we sank. Tom gave us a minute in which to get our wind--we lay gasping in the heat, while the shrapnel splashed about--and then told us to charge, but ordered the men not to fire until they got the word. As we rose, with a number of partridges, the shooting began again, violently, but without much effect. I think we had six or seven men hit. We raced to the trees. Valentine was so passionately anxious to get there that he discarded his haversack, scabbard and mackintosh, and for days afterwards walked about with his naked sword as a walking-stick.

When we reached the trees in a condition of tremendous sweat we found an avenue and a road with a ditch on either side. We were told that our trenches were a few yards over the farther hedge, faced by the German trenches, about 250 yards off. There was fierce rifle and machine-gun fire. Night fell; the wounded were carried back on stretchers; we sat very uncomfortably in a ditch. I was angry with Tom for the only time on the march, as he was meticulous about making us take cover in this beastly ditch when outside it there was a bank of grass like a sofa, which to all intents and purposes was safe from fire. We were extremely thirsty, but there was nothing to drink and no prospect of getting water. After some time we moved down the road upon which we lay, getting what sleep we could. In the earlier part of the night there were fierce duels of rifle fire and machine-guns between the two trenches. It sounded as if the Germans were charging. Our men in the road never got a chance of letting off their guns. Most of us dozed coldly and uncomfortably on the hard road. I woke up about 2 a.m., dreaming that a mule was kicking the splash-board of a Maltese wagon to pieces, and then realized that it was the German rifle fire beyond the hedge, hitting the road. I walked up the road for a few yards and heard two men talking, one of whom was, I suppose, Hubert, and the other must have been C. Hubert said: “Have I your leave, sir, to retire?” “Yes, you have; everybody else has gone; it is clear that we are outflanked on the left, and it is suicide to stay.” The battalion was then ordered to retire; No. 3 Company, doing rearguard, was ordered back to the fields which we had already crossed. I said to Tom: “I hear upon the best authority that this is suicide.” Tom said: “Of course it is; we shall get an awful slating.” We moved back. There was a faint light and a spasmodic rifle fire from the Germans as we went back to the fields we had crossed. We could not make out why they did not open on us with shrapnel, as they had the range. We lay down on the new-cut hay, which smelt delicious. It seemed almost certain that we should be wiped out when dawn came, but most of us went fast asleep. I did. At 4 o’clock we were hurried off. We went down into the blinding darkness of the wood by the road we had gone the evening before. We went through the wood, past the monastery, up into the village. There we waited. The road was blocked, the villagers were huddled, moaning, in the streets.

The men were very pleased to have been under fire, and compared notes as to how they felt. Every one was pleased. But they felt that more of this sort of thing would be uncivilized, and it ought to be stopped by somebody now. In the dawn we crossed a high down, where we expected to be shelled, but nothing happened. We were very tired and footsore.

At 7 o’clock we got to Quevy-le-Petit and had a long drink, the first for seventeen hours. The smell of powder and the heat had made us very thirsty. Two companies were set to dig trenches. We were held in reserve, and all the hot morning we shelled the Germans from Quevy-le-Petit, while their guns answered our fire without much effect. One shell was a trouble. The remainder of the ---- Regiment (men without officers), who had had a bad time at Mons, had a shell burst over them and rushed through our ranks, taking some of our men with them. This was put right at once.

We were told that a tremendous German attack was to take place in the evening; we disliked the idea, as, even to an amateur like myself, it was obvious that there was hardly any means of defence. To stay was to be destroyed, as the Colonel said casually, causing “une impression bien pénible.”

We wrote farewell letters which were never sent. I kept mine in my pocket, as I thought it would do for a future occasion. They began to shell us heavily while we helped ourselves from neighbouring gardens. We did this with as much consideration as possible, and Valentine and I went off to cook some potatoes in an outhouse by a lane.

The peasants were flying, and offered us all their superfluous goods. They were very kind. Then an order to retire came, and in hot haste we left our potatoes. We retired at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon and marched to Longueville, or rather to a camp near it called Bavai. We reached this camp at about 10.30 at night. Moonshine behaved like the war-horse in the Bible. She had hysterics which were intolerable; smelling the battle a long way off. She must have done this the night before, when it was much nearer and I had left her with Ryan, for when I found her again she had only one stirrup. A sergeant-major captured her and picketed her for the night.

The orchard in which we camped blazed with torch-light and camp-fires and was extremely cheerful. Every now and then a rifle went off by accident, and this was always greeted with tremendous cheers.

I was very tired, and threw myself down to sleep under a tree, when up came the Colonel and said: “Come along, have some rum before you go to bed.” I went and drank it, and with all the others lay down thoroughly warm and contented in the long wet grass, and slept soundly for three hours. Next morning we were woken about 3 o’clock, but did not march off till 6 o’clock.

From Bavai we marched to Landrecies. Hubert rode ahead with me to do the billeting. We pastured our horses in the luxuriant grass and got milk at the farms. We did not see much sign of panic amongst the people, but coming to a big railway station we saw that all the engines of the heavy ammunition wagons had been turned round. Hubert saw and swore. In the morning we occupied a farm, where I tried to buy a strap to replace my lost stirrup. We lay about under haystacks and talked to the farmer and his son. After about an hour it was reported that two hundred Germans were coming down the road, and Eric went off after them, with machine-guns.

The retreat had begun in real earnest. This whole retreat was curiously normal. Everybody got very sick of it, and all day long one was hearing officers and men saying how they wanted to turn and fight. I used to feel that myself, though when one was told to do so and realized that we were unchaperoned by the French and faced by about two million Germans, it did something to cool one’s pugnacity, and one received the subsequent order to retire in a temperate spirit. Men occasionally fell out from bad feet, but the regiment marched quite splendidly. There was never any sign of flurry or panic anywhere. I think that most people, when they realized what had happened, accepted things rather impersonally. They thought that as far as our Army in France was concerned, disaster, in the face of the enormous numbers that we had to fight, was inevitable, but that this disaster was not vital as long as the Navy was safe.

My dates are not quite accurate here, as I cannot account for one day. It was Sunday, August 23rd, that we had the fight at Mons; I remember several men said: “Our people are now going to Evening Service at home,” as we marched out; and it was Tuesday, September 1st, that we had the fight in which I and the others were taken prisoners.

Hubert and I arrived at Landrecies about 1 o’clock. Going in, we met S., a Staff officer, who told us where we could quarter the men. We went to a big house belonging to a man called Berlaimont, which Hubert wanted to have as Headquarters. Berlaimont was offensive and did not wish to give his house. We went on to the Maire, who gave us permission to take it. After lunch we went on billeting, finding some very fine houses. We had a mixed reception. Berlaimont gave in ungraciously, and wrote up rather offensive orders as to what was not to be done: “Ne pas cracher dans les corridors.” In other houses, too, they made difficulties. I said: “After all, we are better than the Germans.” They soon had the chance of judging. The troops came in to be billeted. At 6 o’clock fire suddenly broke out in the town, and the cry was raised that the Germans were upon us. I ran back and got my sword and revolver at Headquarters, and going out, found a body of unattached troops training a Maxim on the estaminet that was my lodgings. I prevented them firing. Troops took up positions all over the town. The inhabitants poured out pell-mell. It was like a flight in the Balkans. They carried their all away in wheelbarrows, carts, perambulators and even umbrellas. I met and ran into M. Berlaimont, very pale and fat, trotting away from the town; he said to me with quivering cheeks: “What is it?” I said: “It is the Prussians, M. Berlaimont. And they will probably spit in your corridors.”

We had some dinner in a very hospitable house. At 8 o’clock there was some very fierce fighting; the Coldstreamers had been ordered outside the town. The Germans came up, talking French, and called out to Monk, a Coldstream officer: “Ne tirez pas; nous sommes des amis,” and “Vive les Anglais.” A German knocked Monk under a transport wagon. Then our men grasped what was happening; they charged the Germans and the Germans charged them, three times, I believe. They brought up machine-guns. Afterwards one of our medical officers said that we had lost 150 men, killing 800 to 1,000 Germans. It was there that Archer Clive was killed.

Just before dinner I met an officer of the regiment. I asked him if he had a billet. He told me he could not get one, and I said he could have mine and that I would find another. However, I found that my kit had already been put into the estaminet, and took him up to the market-place to find a lodging. We first went to an empty café, where all the liquor was left out, with no master or servants. We left money for what beer we drank. I then found a room in a tradesman’s house. After dinner I went down to the main barricade with Jack. Wagons, including one of our own that carried our kit, had been dragged across the road and defences were put up like lightning. We loopholed the houses and some houses were pulled down. It was an extraordinarily picturesque scene. The town was pitch-black except where the torches glowed on the faces and on the bayonets of the men, or where shells flashed and burst. I thought of the taking of Italian towns in the seventeenth century. The Germans shelled us very heavily. It did not seem as if there was much chance of getting away, but no one was despondent. At about 1 a.m. there was a lull in the firing, and I went back to lie down in my room. There I fell asleep, and the shelling of the town did not wake me, though the house next to me was hit. About 2.30, in my sleep I heard my name, and found Desmond calling me loudly in the street outside. He said: “We have lost two young officers, L. and W. Come out and find them at once. The Germans are coming into the town, and we shall have to clear out instantly.” I said to him: “I don’t know either L. or W. by sight, and if I did it is far too dark to see them.” “Well,” he said, “you must do your best.” I went out and walked about the town, which was still being shelled, but I was far more afraid of being run over in the darkness than of being hit. Troops were pouring out in great confusion--foot, artillery, transport mixed--and there were great holes in the road made by the German shells. I met Eric, who said: “Come along with me to Guise”; also the driver of a great transport wagon, who said he had no orders, and begged me to come with him: he felt lonely without an officer.

It was quite clear to me that it was impossible to find these two officers. I met Desmond by Headquarters and told him so; he said: “Very well, fall in and come along.” The regiment passed at that moment. Hubert and Tom told me to fall in, but I would not leave Moonshine, though there did not seem to be much more chance of finding her than W. and L. My groom and servant had both disappeared. The houses were all locked or deserted. I battered on a door with my revolver. Two old ladies timidly came out with a light. They pointed to a house where I could find a man, but at that moment a Frenchman came up, whom I commandeered. I went off to Headquarters to see if a sergeant was left.

There was nobody there. The dinner left looked like Belshazzar’s feast. I had a good swig of beer from a jug. My saddle and sword had gone. I went out with the Frenchman and saw that the troops were nearly all out of the town. I determined to stay, if necessary, and hide until I could find my horse, but the Frenchman turned up trumps and we found her. We were terrified of her heels in the dark. I thanked the old ladies and apologized for having threatened them with my revolver. There was no question of riding Moonshine bare-back. I went back to get a saddle, below Headquarters, but the Germans were there, so the Frenchman swore. It was too dark to see, but they weren’t our men. I took her back to where the medical officer was billeted. He had been waiting with a dying man and was about to leave the town. I asked him to let one of his men lead her, and went forward to see if I could get a saddle. In this I failed. As I got out of the town dawn was breaking. For some obscure reason one of our gunners fired a shell. Everybody said: “I suppose that is to tell them where we are.” We all thought that the German artillery fire must catch us going out of the town. For the second time they let us off. By that time we had grasped the fact that they could outmarch us, but we did not know that they had come on motor-cars, and ascribed their greater pace to what we believed to be the fact--that we were entirely unsupported by the French. My regiment were a good long way ahead. I joined an officer who was leading a detachment, and he was anxious that I should stay with him. As I walked along, pretty footsore, an unshaven man came up and asked me if I liked this sort of thing better than politics. I didn’t say much, as I had heard the soldiers discussing politicians in the dark at Landrecies, cursing all politicians every time a shell fell, and saying: “Ah, that’s another one we owe to them. Why aren’t they here?” He offered me a horse. He was the Colonel of the Irish Horse, Burns-Lindow. I took the horse gratefully, which had a slight wound on its shoulder and was as slow as an ox, poor beast. This drove me almost mad after Moonshine, and, meeting another officer, I fell into conversation with him. I asked if he saw anything wrong in my taking the saddle off this horse and putting it on to Moonshine, when I found her. He said it was certainly irregular, and I then recognized who he was. I got away from him as soon as possible and, finding another officer of the Irish Horse, persuaded him to help me to take off the saddle and put it on to Moonshine, whom I had regained fairly chastened. I found the Colonel, and we rode on to Etreux. Here we brought down an aeroplane after it had dropped a bomb on us. The officers tried to prevent the men shooting, but the noise made their commands useless. The C.O. was very angry. He said: “I will teach you to behave like a lot of ... s. Off you go and dig trenches.” One of the men said as we marched off: “If that was a friendly aeroplane, what did it want to drop that bomb on us for?” He was quite right. It had done this, and the shell had fallen about thirty yards away. Our fire prevented us hearing it. Stephen came down in a Balaclava helmet and said that officers were the best shots at aeroplanes because pheasants had taught them to swing in firing.

At Etreux we were ordered to dig trenches, which we did. After this I slept under a hedge, where Bernard, the Frenchman, gave me some rum, which was very welcome, as it was raining. At about 9 o’clock I felt Hubert, very angry, thumping me, as he thought I was a private who had taken his haversack to lie on.

The next morning everybody was in tremendous spirits. They had slept very well in the trenches and those outside had been housed in nests of straw. The officers were called up and spoken to by the Colonel. He read out a message from Joffre to say that the British Army had saved France. He told us that the retreat had been inevitable and had given the French time to take up adequate defensive positions. The impression I think most of us had was that we had been used as a bait. Then we were once more ordered to retire.

As I rode along in the morning going to La Fère an aeroplane passed fairly close over us; everybody fired at it at once; thousands of rounds must have been fired, and I found it useful in teaching Moonshine to stand fire. She took her first lesson well, though she broke up the formation of half a company. We often saw aeroplanes, and they were nearly always shot at, whether they belonged to friend or foe.

That day we marched to Origny, where we camped below a hill with a steep cliff to it. I went into the town and bought eggs, brandy, etc. There was every kind of rumour about: that we were completely surrounded by the Germans; that there were millions of them in front and behind; also that there had been a great French defeat at Charleroi.

We were all very jolly. At night the artillery poured past with the sound of a great cataract. We lay down on the hillside, and every man going to get straw to cover him walked over Tom’s face, who swore himself almost faint with rage. All our kit had been lost at Landrecies, and many of us had not great-coats.

We started at dawn; but had to wait to let other troops pass us. I was sent back to look for communicating files of the regiment that had been lost. I found them with difficulty and brought them on. The Germans were too near to us. That day we marched through great avenues of tall poplars and through a pleasant smiling country to La Fère. Moonshine began to grow lame. I stayed behind to get food for my company and lost the regiment, only finding them again after long wanderings and with the greatest difficulty. We camped near La Fère. The regiment forgot its tiredness in a hunt after a strange horse which strayed into our camp and which Eric finally captured for the transport. Both Desmond and he tried hard to take my saddle from me; for the saddle which I had first put upon Moonshine was Hickie’s harness. Then Hickie was invalided, and I lost his saddle at Landrecies and then got the saddle from B. L., Colonel of the Irish Horse. I beat them in argument, but thought they were quite capable of taking the saddle in spite of that.

We stopped some time to smoke and rest. The men were drawn up on a torrid cornfield. Valentine was overdone. He volunteered, like the man in the Bible, to get water. Finding that he would have to wait in a long queue, he returned without the water. Tom’s anger beat all records. A deputation from another regiment came and asked him to repeat what he had said. They were surprised to find that it was his brother-in-law who had provoked these comments.

I saw John Manners and George Cecil, and gave them cigarettes. Near a great factory of some kind we marched past Sir Douglas Haig. I hurried past him.

La Fère was an old fortified city. We were told we were to have a rest and the next day’s march was to be a very short one. We camped near Berteaucourt. It was very hot. I hobbled up to the village to get provisions, and found a French girl, the daughter of a farmer, who talked fair English. Near the village I spoke to a number of people. I told one peasant I thought it was a mistake that everybody should fly from their houses if they did not mean to clear out altogether, and that it was an invitation to the Germans to loot and burn. He said: “Monsieur, I quite agree with you. Moi, je vais agir en patriote quand ils viendront. Je vais tout bonnement descendre dans ma cave.” The next day (the 29th) we camped above the village of Pasly. On the road I got boracic cream for my horse’s cracked heel. We passed through a big town, Coucy, crowded with curious, frightened, silent people. It had a very fine castle. I bought some cigarette-holders, with cinema pictures inside, for the Colonel. People pressed chocolate and all they could get into my hands, taking payment unwillingly. Moonshine lost a shoe, but I managed to get her shod there. Reluctantly at Pasly I lent her to Robin, who went off to post his men in the village. The moment he had gone the O.C. sent for me and told me we had got outside the area of our maps, and asked if I could get him a map. I started off at once to walk to Soissons. When he discovered where I was going he said it was out of the question; so I walked down to Pasly either to get a map there or to take the Maire’s carriage and drive to Soissons. In Pasly there was a tenth-rate Maire and a schoolmaster. They provided me with an ancient map, the date of which was 1870. It did not even mark the monument of the schoolmasters whom the Germans had lightheartedly shot on their last visit to the village.

I found a half-wit, and paid him to carry up some wine, bread and eggs.

We camped above a quarry and talked of what was going to happen. There seemed only two alternatives. One was that we should get into Paris and take first-class tickets home to England, and the other that we should stay and get wiped out. For we still saw no French troops; we still believed ourselves to be 100,000 against a force of anything from one to two millions.