In The Firing Line 17

In The Firing Line 17

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.