In The Firing Line 4

In The Firing Line 4

I have not heard from Jack (his brother, also at the front). I do so

hope he will come back.

 

* * * * *

 

[Illustration:

 

_Drawn by F. Matania._ _Copyright of The Sphere._

 

THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE LANDS IN FRANCE, AUGUST, 1914.]

 

_Letter 11.--From a wounded Gordon Highlander to his father, Mr.

Alexander Buchan, of Monymusk:_

 

We had a pretty stiff day of it last Sunday. The battalion went into

small trenches in front of a wood a few miles to the right of Mons, and

the Germans had the range to a yard. I was on the right edge of the

wood with the machine guns, and there wasn’t half some joy.

 

The shells were bursting all over the place. It was a bit of a funny

sensation for a start, but you soon got used to it. You would hear it

coming singing through the air over your head; then it would give a

mighty big bang and you would see a great flash, and there would be a

shower of lumps of iron and rusty nails all around your ears. They kept

on doing that all Sunday; sometimes three or four at the same time, but

none of them hit me. I was too fly for them.

 

Their artillery is pretty good, but the infantry are no good at all.

They advance in close column, and you simply can’t help hitting them. I

opened fire on them with the machine gun and you could see them go over

in heaps, but it didn’t make any difference. For every man that fell

ten took his place. That is their strong point. They have an unlimited

supply of men.

 

They think they can beat any army in the world simply by hurling great

masses of troops against them, but they are finding out their mistake

now that they are put up against British troops. The reason for the

British retreat is this--all up through France are great lines of

entrenchments and fortresses, and as they have not enough men to defeat

the Germans in open battle, they are simply retiring from position to

position--holding the Germans for a few days and then retiring to the

next one. All this is just to gain time. Our losses are pretty severe,

but they are nothing to the Germans, whose losses are ten to every one

of ours.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 12.--From Private J. Willis, of the Gordon Highlanders:_

 

You mustn’t run away with the notion that we stand shivering or

cowering under shell fire, for we don’t. We just go about our business

in the usual way. If it’s potting at the Germans that is to the fore we

keep at it as though nothing were happening, and if we’re just having a

wee bit chat among ourselves we keep at it all the same.

 

Last week when I got this wound in my leg it was because I got excited

in an argument with wee Georgie Ferriss, of our company, about Queen’s

Park Rangers and their chances this season. One of my chums was hit

when he stood up to light a cigarette while the Germans were blazing

away at us.

 

Keep your eyes wide open and you will have a big surprise sooner than

you think. We’re all right, and the Germans will find that out sooner

than you at home.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 13.--From Private G. Kay, of the 2nd Royal Scots, to his

employer, a milkman, at Richmond:_

 

You will be surprised to hear I am home from Belgium in hospital with

a slight wound in my heel from shrapnel. I had a narrow escape in

Wednesday’s battle at or near Mons, as I was with the transport, and it

was surrounded twice.

 

The last time I made holes in the stable wall, and had a good position

for popping them off--and I did, too; but somehow they got to know

where we were, and shelled us for three hours. Off went the roof,

and off went the roof of other buildings around us. At last a shell

exploded and set fire to our cooking apparatus and our stables. We

had twenty-two fine horses, and all the transport in this stable

yard. We hung on for orders to remove the horses. None came. At last

a shell like a thunderbolt struck the wall, and down came half the

stables, and as luck would have it, as we retired--only about six of

us--my brother-in-law, the chap you were going to start when we were

called up, went to the right and I went to the left. Just then a shell

burst high and struck several down in the yard--it was then I got

hit--smashed the butt of my rifle, and sent me silly for five minutes.

Then I heard a major say, “For yourselves, boys.” I looked for my

brother-in-law, but he was not to be seen, and I have not heard of him

since. During all this time the fire was spreading rapidly. I was told

to go back and cut the horses loose. I did so, and some of them got

out, but others were burnt to death.

 

Then God answered my prayer, and I had strength to run through a line

of rifle fire over barbed wire covered by a hedge, and managed to get

out of rifle range, three hundred yards or four hundred yards away,

and then I fell for want of water. I just had about two teaspoonfuls

in my bottle, and then I went on struggling my way through hedges to a

railway line.

 

When I got through I saw an awful sight--a man of the Royal Irish with

six wounds from shrapnel. He asked me for water, but I had none. I

managed to carry him about half a mile, and then found water. I stuck

to him though he was heavy and I was feeling weak and tired. I had to

carry him through a field of turnips, and half way I slipped and both

fell. I then had a look back and could see the fire mountains high.

 

I then saw one of my own regiment, and called to him to stay with

this man while I went for a shutter or a door, which I got, and with

the help of two Frenchmen soon got him to a house and dressed him.

We were being shelled again from the other end of the village then.

We were about fifteen strong, as some slightly wounded came up and

some not wounded. We got him away, and then met a company of Cameron

Highlanders, and handed him over to them.

 

I think I marched nearly sixty-three miles, nearly all on one foot, and

at last I got a horse and made my way to Mons, where I was put in the

train for Havre.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 14.--From Sergeant Taylor, of the R.H.A.:_

 

Our first brush with the enemy was on August 21st, about thirty miles

from Mons, but Mons, my goodness, it was just like Brock’s benefit at

Belle Vue, and you would have thought it was hailing. Of course, we

were returning the compliment. The Germans always found the range,

which proved they had good maps, yet in their anxiety they tried to

fire too many shells, the consequence being that a lot of them were

harmless, and they did not give themselves time to properly fuse them.

Only on one day--from the 21st to my leaving--did we miss an action. In

General French’s report you will, no doubt, see where the 5th Brigade

accounted for two of the German cavalry regiments, of which only six

troopers were taken prisoners; the rest bit the dust. One of these

regiments was the Lancers, of which the late Queen was honorary colonel.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 15.--From Private J. Atkinson, of the Duke of Wellington’s

West Riding Regiment, to his wife at Leeds:_

 

Talk about a time! I would not like to go through the same again for

love or money.

 

It is not war. It is murder. The Germans are murdering our wounded

as fast as they come across them. I gave myself up for done a week

last Sunday night, as we were in the thick of the fight at Mons. Our

regiment started fighting with 1,009 and finished with 106 and three

officers. That made 109, as we just lost 900. It was cruel. At one

place we were at there were six streets of the town where all the

women were left widows, and were all wearing the widows’ weeds. The

French regiment that fought there was made up in the town and they got

wiped out.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 16.--From Private Robert Robertson, of the Argylls, to his

parents at Musselburgh:_

 

The poor Argylls got pretty well hit, but never wavered a yard for all

their losses. The Scots Greys are doing great work at the front--in

fact they were the means of putting ten thousand Germans to their fate

on Sunday morning. I will never forget that day, as our regiment left

a town on the French frontier on Saturday morning at 3 o’clock and

marched till 3 a.m. on Sunday into a Belgian town. I was about to have

an hour in bed, at least a lie down in a shop, when I was wakened to

go on guard at the General’s headquarters, and while I was on guard a

Captain of the crack French cavalry came in with the official report of

the ten thousand Germans killed. The Scots Greys, early that morning,

had decoyed the Germans right in front of the machine guns of the

French, and they just mowed them down. There was no escape for them,

poor devils, but they deserve it the way they go on. You would be sorry

for the poor Belgian women having to leave their homes with young

children clinging to them. One sad case we came across on the roadside

was a woman just out of bed two days after giving birth to a child. The

child was torn from her breast, and her breast cut off that the infant

was sucking. Then the Germans bayoneted the child before the mother’s

eyes. We did the best we could for her, but she died about six hours

after telling us her hardships.

 

* * * * *

 

_Letter 17.--From Private Whitaker, of the Coldstream Guards:_

 

You thought it was a big crowd that streamed out of the Crystal Palace

when we went to see the Cup Final. Well, outside Compiègne it was

just as if that crowd came at us. You couldn’t miss them. Our bullets

ploughed into them, but still they came for us. I was well entrenched,

and my rifle got so hot I could hardly hold it. I was wondering if I

should have enough bullets, when a pal shouted, “Up, Guards, and at

’em!” The next second he was rolled over with a nasty knock on the

shoulder. He jumped up and hissed, “Let me get at them!” His language

was a bit stronger than that.

 

When we really did get the order to get at them we made no mistake, I

can tell you. They cringed at the bayonet, but those on our left wing

tried to get round us, and after racing as hard as we could for quite

five hundred yards we cut up nearly every man who did not run away.