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.
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.
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.
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.
You have read of the charge of the Light Brigade. It was nowt to our cavalry chaps. I saw two of our fellows who were unhorsed stand back to back and slash away with their swords, bringing down nine or ten of the panic-stricken devils. Then they got hold of the stirrup-straps of a horse without a rider, and got out of the melée. This kind of thing was going on all day.
In the afternoon I thought we should all get bowled over, as they came for us again in their big numbers. Where they came from, goodness knows; but as we could not stop them with bullets they had another taste of the bayonet. My captain, a fine fellow, was near to me, and as he fetched them down he shouted, “Give them socks, my lads!” How many were killed and wounded I don’t know; but the field was covered with them.
First of all I sailed from Southampton on August 12th on a cattle boat called the Cawdor Castle. We sailed at 9.30 at night, and after a passage of 14½ hours landed at Le Havre, on the coast of France. We went into camp there, and then left on August 14th, getting into a train, not third class carriages, but cattle trucks. We were on the train eighteen and a half hours, and I was a bit stiff when I got out at a place called Wassigny. Then we marched through pouring rain to a village, where we slept in some barns. The next day being Sunday, August 16th, we got on the march to a place called Grooges, a distance of about nine miles. We stayed there till Thursday.
Then we started to march to get into Belgium. We got there on Sunday, the 23rd, just outside Mons. We dug trenches, from which we had to retire, and then we got into a position, and there I saw the big battle, but could not do anything, because we were with the artillery. We retreated into France, being shelled all the way, and on the Tuesday, the 25th, we marched into Landrecies. We arrived there about one o’clock and were thinking ourselves lucky. We considered we were going to have two days’ rest, but about five o’clock the alarm was raised. The Germans got to the front of us and were trying to get in the town. So we fixed our bayonets, doubled up the road, and the fight started. The German artillery shelled us, and some poor chaps got hit badly. The chap next to me got shot, and I tried to pull him out of the road, so that I could get down in his place, as there was not room for us all in the firing line. We had to lay down behind and wait our chance. I had got on my knees, and just got hold of his leg, when something hit my rifle and knocked it out of my hand, and almost at the same time a bullet went right through my arm. It knocked me over, and I must have bumped my head, for I do not remember any more till I felt someone shaking me. It was the doctor – a brave man, for he came right up amongst the firing to tend the wounded. He bandaged my arm up, and I had to get to hospital, a mile and a half away, as best I could.
The beasts of Germans shelled the building all night long without hitting it. We moved next morning, and by easy stages left for England. I am going on fine; shall soon be back and at it again I expect. Keep up your spirits, won’t you? I believe it was only your prayers at home that guarded me that Tuesday night, simply awful it was.
I do not know if this letter will ever get to you or not, but I am writing on the chance that it will. A lot has happened since I last wrote to you. We marched straight up to Belgium from France, and the first day we arrived my company was put on outposts for the night. During the night we dug a few trenches, etc., so did not get much sleep. The next day the Germans arrived, and I will try and describe the fight. We were only advanced troops of a few hundred holding the line of a canal. The enemy arrived about 50,000 strong. We held them in check all day and killed hundreds of them, and still they came. Finally, of course, we retired on our main body. I will now explain the part I played. We were guarding a railway bridge over a canal. My company held a semicircle from the railway to the canal. I was nearest the railway. A Scottish regiment completed the semicircle on the right of the railway to the canal. The railway was on a high embankment running up to the bridge, so that the Scottish regiment was out of sight of us. We held the Germans all day, killing hundreds, when about five p.m. the order to retire was eventually given. It never reached us, and we were left all alone. The Germans therefore got right up to the canal on our right, hidden by the railway embankment, and crossed the railway. Our people had blown up the bridge before their departure. We found ourselves between two fires, and I realized we had about 2,000 Germans and a canal between myself and my friends.
We decided to sell our