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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you are all extra good I’ll bring you home a pet German. How is Home Rule getting on? Send me a paper, but I don’t know when I’ll get it or you’ll get this. I suppose the papers are full of this ruction. I can write no more as I’ll soon have to go on guard.
How serious the situation is here it is hard for you to realize in London. We may be encircled at any moment by these hordes of savages. Such murderous cruelty has never been seen in the annals of war. The Turks and the Bulgarians were no worse. It is the rule to fire on ambulances and slaughter the wounded. I know it from eye-witnesses. The Germans are drunk with savagery. It is an orgy of the basest cruelty. They are rushing Paris at all costs, squandering their men recklessly in overwhelming numbers. Our troops are submerged and can only retreat, fighting desperately, but the spirit of our soldiers is splendid. All the wounded I have seen laugh and joke over their wounds and are burning to have another go at the barbarians. Victory is certain. But what disastrous changes shall we know before it comes. I am prepared for the worst—another month of hopeless struggle perhaps. But we will light to the last man. The tide will turn, and then—woe to them. I know you will stand by us in the cause of civilization, common honest truth till the bitter end. But if you want to help us you must hasten.
I wish you would try to make the people in England understand that they should be most exceedingly thankful that they are living on an island and not in the midst of the dreadful things which are happening on the Continent. Do enforce upon the public that England must fight this thing out, and must conquer even if it has to spend the blood of its young men like water. It will be far better that every family throughout England should have to sorrow for one of its members than that England should have to go through similar ordeals to those which Continental countries are suffering.
The sight of old women and men fleeing from village to village; young mothers with babies in arms, with their few personal effects on their backs, or in some more fortunate cases with their goods and chattels surrounding the aged grandmother stowed away in an old farm cart, drawn by a nag too venerable to be of service to the State; this is what one has seen daily. Picture to yourself our night marches with the burning villages on all sides set fire to by German shells—and the Germans have been rather careless whether their shells struck fortified and defended positions, or open ones. In some cases the fires were caused intentionally by marauding patrols.
Do not imagine that things are not going well with us. We are all satisfied and confident of the end; but at the same time the only possible end can be gained by sacrifice on the part of those at home only. All is well with me personally; I have a busy time, but it is most interesting work.
(1) At Salisbury.
A non-commissioned officer of the Royal Field Artillery, invalided home with shrapnel wounds in the thigh, from which he hopes soon to recover, has given this vivid description of his experiences at the front after passing north of Amiens, to a Daily Telegraph correspondent:
Pushing forward from our rest camp, covering from twenty to thirty miles a day, with the infantry marching in front and cavalry protecting us on either flank, we received information that we were within a few hours’ march of the enemy. Needless to say, this put us on the alert. There was no funk about us, for we were all anxious to have a go at the Germans, about whom we had heard such tales of cruelty that it made our blood run cold.
Our orders were to load with case shot, for fear of cavalry attack, as shrapnel is of little use against mounted troops. The order was soon obeyed, and after passing the day on the road, we moved across country north of ——, where the infantry took up a strong position. We saw the French troops on our right as we moved up to gun positions which our battery commanders had selected in advance. It was Sunday morning when the attack came, and the sun had already lit up the beautiful country, and as I looked across at the villages which lay below in the valley with their silent belfries I thought of my home on the Cotswolds and of the bells ringing for morning service. I pictured dad and my sister Nell going to church.
It was, however, no time for sentiment, for gallopers soon brought the news that the enemy was advancing, and that a cavalry attack might be expected at any moment. Infantry had entrenched themselves along our front, and there was a strong body posted on our flanks and rear. These became engaged first with a large body of Uhlans, who endeavoured to take them by surprise, the front rank rushing forward with the lance and the rear using the sword.
We were on slightly higher ground, and could see the combat, which appeared to be going in our favour. Our men stuck to their ground and shot and bayonetted the Uhlans, who, after ten minutes’ fight, made off, but, sad to say, a dreadful fusilade of shrapnel and Maxim fire followed immediately, and our guns also came under fire. To this we readily replied, and must have done some execution, especially to the large masses of infantry that were advancing about a mile away.
We got a favourable “bracket” at once, so our Major said, and we worked our guns for all we were worth, altering fuses and the ranging of our guns as the Germans came nearer. Shells fell fast around us, some ricocheted, and passed overhead without bursting, ploughing the ground up in our rear, but not a few exploded, and made many casualties. Three of my gun detachment fell with shrapnel bullets, but still we kept the guns going, the officers giving a hand.
At one time we came under the fire of the enemy’s machine guns, but two of our 18-pounders put them out of action after a few rounds. The order came at length to retire so as to get a more favourable position, but our drivers failed to bring back all the gun teams, only sufficient to horse four of the guns. The remainder of the animals had been terribly mutilated. These were limbered up, the remainder being for a time protected by the infantry. The Gordons and Middlesex were in the shelter trenches on our left, and the latter regiment was said at one time to be almost overwhelmed, but aid came, and the masses of Prussian infantry were beaten off.
Still, there was terrible slaughter on both sides, and the dead lay in long burrows on the turf. We should have lost our guns to the Uhlans if the infantry had not persevered with the rifle, picking off the cavalry at 800 yards.
It was grand shooting. In the afternoon we slackened fire, as also did the Germans; in fact, we did but little from our new gun positions, as we were destined to cover the retreat of the infantry later on.
As the wounded were brought to the rear we heard of the deeds of heroism from the men of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the fighting line—how an officer stood over the body of a private who had previously saved his life until he had spent his last shot from his revolver, and then fell seriously wounded, to be avenged the next moment by a burly sergeant who plunged his bayonet into the Prussian.
In the ranks of the South Lancashire Regiment, from what has been heard, many deserve the Distinguished Conduct Medal, if not the V.C., for the manner in which they charged masses of German infantry through the village to our front. Uhlans got round behind them, but they did not flinch, although serious gaps were made in their ranks.
A non-commissioned officer of the Medicals related how he saw a party of Fusiliers rush to the aid of their Maxim gun party when Uhlans swept down on them from behind a wood. They accounted for over twenty and lost but one man.
At night we were ordered to move on again, and we marched south-west in the direction of ——, covering twenty miles in the darkness. Our unhorsed guns were got through by splitting up our teams, and with the help of the brawny arms of the infantry.
The enemy were aware of our retreat, and kept up an incessant fire, bringing searchlights to the aid of their gunners. The moon slightly favoured us, and, with the help of local guides, we found our way. I heard of the brilliant work performed by our battalions, who kept the enemy at bay whilst we withdrew all our vehicles, and we gunners felt proud of them. They kept the enemy busy by counter-attack, and made it impossible to get round us.
Next morning the enemy were again in the field endeavouring to force our left flank. Field-Marshal Sir John French, whom we saw early in the day, was, however, equal to the occasion, and so manœuvred his troops that we occupied a position from which the Germans could not dislodge us. The artillery kept up long-range fire, and that is how I received my wound. Within a few minutes first aid was rendered, and I was put in an ambulance and taken off with other wounded to a field hospital, where I met with every attention.
(2) At the London Hospital.
By a Daily Telegraph correspondent.
A description of a thrilling fight in the air, which had a dramatic climax, was given to Queen Alexandra when her Majesty paid a visit to the London Hospital.
Among the wounded soldiers there is a private of the Royal Engineers, who was himself witness of the incident.
He said that following a very hard fight on the day before, he was lying on the ground with his regiment, resting. Suddenly a German aeroplane hove in sight. It flew right over the British troops, and commenced to signal their position to the German camp.
A minute later, amid intense excitement of the troops, two aeroplanes, with English and French pilots, rose into the air from the British rear. Ascending with great rapidity, they made for the German aeroplane, with the intention of attacking it.
At first some of our men, who were very much on the alert, fired by mistake at the French aeroplane. Luckily, their shots went wide.
Then the troops lay still, and with breathless interest watched the attempts of the French and British aviators to outmanœuvre their opponent, and to cut off his retreat. After a little time the Franco-British airmen abandoned this attempt, and then the Englishman and the German began to fly upwards, in the evident desire to obtain a more favourable position for shooting down from above. Owing to the protection afforded by the machine, it would have been of little use for one aviator to fire at his opponent from below. Once a higher altitude was attained, the opportunity for effective aim would be much greater.
Up and up circled the two airmen, till their machines could barely be distinguished from the ground. They were almost out of sight when the soldiers saw that the British aviator was above his opponent. Then the faint sound of a shot came down from the sky, and instantly the German aeroplane began to descend, vol-planing in graceful fashion. Apparently it was under the most perfect control. On reaching the earth the machine landed with no great shock, ran a short distance along the ground, and then stopped.
Rushing to the spot, the British soldiers found, to their amazement, that the pilot was dead. So fortunate had been the aim of the Englishman that he had shot the German through the head. In his dying moments the latter had started to descend, and when he reached the earth his hands still firmly gripped the controls.
The aeroplane was absolutely undamaged, and was appropriated by the British aviators.
(3) From a “Daily Telegraph” correspondent at Rouen:
It was known that there were British wounded in Rouen—I had even spoken to one of them in the streets—but how was one to see them? The police commissaire sent me to his central colleague, who sent me on to the état major, who was anxious to send me back to him, but finally suggested that I should see the military commissary at one of the stations. He was courteous, but very firm—the authorisation I asked for could not be, and was not, granted to anyone. At the headquarters of the British General Staff the same answer in even less ambiguous terms.
It was then that Privates X., Y., Z. came to my aid. Private Z. had a request to make of me. It was that I should see to it that the black retriever of his regiment now at the front should be photographed, and that the photograph should appear in The Daily Telegraph. Private Z. had a temperature of 102·5, and looked it, but he was not worrying about that. He was worrying about the photograph of the regimental retriever, which I understood him to say, though dates make it almost incredible, had gone through the Boer campaign, and had not yet had his photograph in the papers. So I met by appointment Privates X., Y., and Z. outside the Hospice Général of Rouen, and by them was franked in to the hospital, where a few dozen of our wounded were sunning themselves. It was just time, and no more, as orders had been received a few minutes before that the British wounded were to be transferred from Rouen to London, for something grave was afoot.
“Do you want to get back to England?” someone called out to a soldier whose arm was in a sling, and the whole sleeve of whose jacket had been ripped by the fragment of a shell.
“Not I,” he shouted; “I want to go to the front again and get my sleeve back, and something more.”
I managed to speak with two or three of the wounded as they were getting ready for the start. One of them, an artilleryman, had been injured by his horses falling on him at Ligny, I guessed it was—only guessed, for Tommy charges a French word as bravely and much less successfully than he charges the enemy. It was the same story that one hears from all, of a heroic struggle against overwhelming odds. “They were ten to one against us, in my opinion,” he said. “They were all over us. Their artillery found the range by means of aeroplanes. The shell fire was terrible.”
He says that it was very accurate, but that fortunately the quality of the shells is not up to that of the shooting. My informant’s division held out for twenty-four hours against the overwhelming odds. Then, when the Germans had managed to get a battery into action behind, they retired during the night of Wednesday, steadily and in excellent order, keeping the German pursuit at bay. The next man I spoke to really spoke to me. He was anxious to tell his story.
“I have been in the thick of it,” he said; “in the very thick of it. I was one of the chauffeurs in the service of the British General Staff.”
He told me that he was not a Regular soldier, but a volunteer from the Automobile Club, an American who had become a naturalised English citizen, and had once been a journalist. His own injury, a burnt arm, was from a back-fire, but his escape from the German bullets had been almost miraculous. Three staff officers, one after another, had been hit in the body of the car behind him. This is his story:
“On Friday, the 25th, the British were just outside Le Cateau. On Saturday morning the approach of the Germans in force was signalled. On Sunday morning at daybreak a German aeroplane flew over our lines, and, although fired at by the aeroplane gun mounted in the car, and received with volleys from the troops, managed to rejoin its lines. Twenty minutes later the German artillery opened fire with accuracy. The aeroplane, as so often, had done its work as range-finder. For twelve hours the cannonade went on. Then the British forces retreated six miles. On Monday morning the bombardment began again, and at two that afternoon the German forces entered Le Cateau from which the English had retired. Many of the houses were in flames. The Germans, who had ruthlessly bayonetted our wounded if they moved so much as a finger as they lay on the ground, were guilty of brutal conduct when they entered the city.
“On Tuesday, the British, who had retired to Landrecies, were again attacked by the Germans. They believed, wrongly, that on their right was a supporting French force. The range was again found by aeroplane, and the British were compelled to evacuate. That was on Tuesday. The British troops had been fighting steadily for four days, but their morale and their spirits had not suffered.”
As I write, a detachment of the R.A.M.C. is filing past, and people have risen from their chairs and are cheering and saluting. Half an hour ago Engineers passed with their pontoons decorated with flowers and greenery. The men had flowers in their caps, and even the horses were flower-decked. Tommy Atkins has the completest faith in his leaders and in himself. He quite realises the necessity for secrecy of operations in modern warfare. Of course, he has his own theories. This is one of them textually:
“The Germans are simply walking into it. Of course, we have had losses, but that was part of the plan—the sprat to catch the whale. They are going to find themselves in a square between four allied armies, and then,”—so far Private X., but here Private Y. broke in cheerfully: “And then they will be electrocuted.”
And at this moment it begins to look as if—apart from that detail of the square of four armies—Privates X. and Y. had known what they were talking about; for some few days ago the great retreat came to an abrupt end, the British and French forces carrying out General Joffre’s carefully laid plan of campaign, turned their defensive movement into a combined attack, the Germans fell back before them and are still retiring. They marched through Belgium into France with heavy fighting and appalling losses, only to be held in check at the right place and time and beaten back by the road they had come, when Paris seemed almost at their mercy. But that retirement is another story.