We left Vadencourt on August 19th, Hickie and Hubert both ill, travelling on a transport cart. I rode ahead, through pretty and uneventful country. At Oisy, Hickie was very ill, and I got him some brandy. We were to camp beyond Oisy. When we got to the appointed place the Maire was ill and half dotty. Stepney12 and I laboured like mad to find houses, but at last, when our work was finished we found that they had already been given to the Coldstreamers. Some of the people were excellent. One old fellow of seventy wept and wished that his house was a big as a barn that he might put up the soldiers in it. A rough peasant boy took me round and stayed with us all the afternoon and refused to take a penny. But some of them were not so kind. In the end, billets were not found for a number of officers and men, who slept quite comfortably in the new-mown hay. We passed a big monastery where two Germans, disguised as priests, had been taken and shot the week before. I slept in a house belonging to three widows, all like stage creatures. They had one of the finest cupboards I have ever seen.
The next morning (20 August) we marched off to Maroilles – a big dull town, and again some of the people were not overpleased to see us. Here we had an excellent dinner. I slept at a chemist’s. Hickie was sent back from Maroilles to Amiens with rheumatic fever. We got up at 4 o’clock the next morning (21 August), and had a pretty long march to Longueville by Malplaquet.
As we crossed the frontier the men wanted to cheer, but they were ordered to be quiet, ‘so as not to let the Germans hear them.’ This order gave an unpleasant impression of the proximity of the Germans.
The men began to fall out a great deal on the road. The heat was very great. Many of the Reservists were soft, and the feet found them out. Their rough clothes rubbed them. Tom carried rifles all day, and I carried rifles and kit on my horse, while the men held on to the stirrups.
By this time the Maires of France seemed to be growing faint under the strain of billeting. We never saw the Maire of Longueville. The country made a wonderful picture that I shall never forget. We marched past fields of rich, tall grass, most splendid pasture, and by acres and acres of ripe corn which was either uncut or, if cut, uncarried.
There was any amount of food for our horses, but one felt reluctant at first at feeding them in the standing corn. I went ahead when I could to forage for the mess, and because Moonshine danced continuously and produced confusion.
We lived chiefly on hard-boiled eggs, chocolate and beer, but we did better than most other companies, because generally, as Valentine said, the officers’ vocabulary was limited to ‘omelette’ and ‘bière.’
Longueville is a very long town, with fine houses, and we did capitally there, but the men were tired. No. 3 dined luxuriously at a farm. Hugo Gough and I billeted at two houses close to each other. At 6 o’clock I went to get some rest, when my servant told me that the order had come to stand to arms at once, as the Germans were close upon us.
I went outside and heard one cannon boom very faintly in the distance. Women were wringing their hands and crying in the streets, and the battalion was order to stand to arms. Then, after a time, we were ordered to march at ten, and went back to quarters. At this time we began to curse the Germans for disturbing the peace of Europe.
The women of the village brought us milk, bread, everything they could for the march. While we were dining the order came to make ready for a German attack. We went out at once. Bernard took me up and down various roads, and we put iron and wire and everything we could lay hold of, across them, making a flimsy defence. When we returned we heard that we were to march at 2 a.m., and at 11 those who could lay down to sleep. The woman in my house was very kind in getting bread and milk. At 2 o’clock we began marching. The horses were all over the place. Moonshine nearly kicked a man behind her heels, and Tom just missed being killed by the ammunition horse in front. It was very dark.
We marched to a place called Senlis. Dawn came, and then an enemy aeroplane appeared over us, which everybody at once shot at. Moonshine broke up two companies in the most casual way. The aeroplane went on. In Belgium the people were very good to us, during the week-end that we spent there. They were honest and pathetic. There were no signs of panic, but there was a ghastly silence in the towns.
Beyond Senlis we were halted on a plain near a big town which we did not then know was Mons. We were drawn up and told that the Germans were close to us and that we had to drive them back. Valentine and I lay down under the shelter of a haystack, as it was raining. It was a mournful day in its early hours. At about 10 a.m. I was sent for by the Colonel, who had been looking for me, he said, for some time. He told me to ride after Stepney to Quevy-le-Grand. I rode fast, and caught up Stepney. We stabled our horses and went round the town. Soames, a Staff officer, told us we could have both sides of the road – as we understood, the pompous main road. Unfortunately he meant both sides of an insignificant road we had not even noticed. We took one of the biggest and most beautiful farms I have ever seen for Headquarters, and proposed to put seven or eight officers in it. We, then, as usual, found that this house and all the rest had been given to the Coldstreamers, and we went to hunt for other billets. I thought I heard cannon, faint and dim. As we went on with our work the noise grew louder and louder. There was a big battle going on within four or five miles. Then in came the battalion from Senlis (which was burnt twenty-four hours later) at about twelve, and got into billets, while, at last, we had luncheon. Valentine and I were eating an omelette and talking Shakespeare, when suddenly we saw the battalion go past. We both got cursed because we had not been able to prophesy that the battalion would start within twenty minutes. We marched on till about half-past three, through rising and falling land, under a very hot sun. We were getting nearer to the battle. The sky was filled with smoke-wreaths from shells. ‘We are going slap-bang at them,’ said Hubert13. At 3.30 we found ourselves on a hill, by a big building which looked like a monastery. The road was crowded with troops and frightened peasants. Below the road lay the green valley with the river winding through it, and on the crest of the wooded hills beyond were the Germans.
We left our horses and marched down to the valley. As we passed the village of Harveng I inconsiderately tried to get a drink of water from a house. The men naturally followed, but we were all ordered on, and I had nothing to drink until 7 o’clock the next morning. The men, or some of them, got a little water that night.
From behind us by the monastery the shells rose in jerks, three at a time. The Germans answered from the belt of trees above the cliffs. Our feelings were more violently moved against German as the disturber of Europe. I went into the first fight prepared only for peace, as I had left my revolver and sword on my horse. Tom said: ‘For goodness sake don’t get away from our company; those woods will be full of Germans with bayonets to-night.’ We never doubted that we should drive them back. The Colonel called the officers together and told us that the trees above the chalk cliffs were our objective. We then lay down in some lucerne and waited and talked. The order to move came about 5.30, I suppose. We went down through the fields rather footsore and came to a number of wire fences which kept in cattle. These fences we were ordered to cut. My agricultural instinct revolted at this destruction. We marched on through a dark wood to the foot of the cliffs and skirting them, came to the open fields, on the flank of the wood, sloping steeply upwards. Here we found our first wounded man, though I believe as we moved through the wood an officer had been reported missing.
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 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 Curry who commands the Grenadiers. 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. Everyone 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 Fra
nce 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 Soames, 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 Monsieur 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, Monsieur Berlaimont and they will probably spit in your corridors.’
Mons, Anzac and Kut Page 3