For more than two years now, I have been trying to forget those first
months of the war. The months when the Black Watch and other regiments of
the immortal "contemptible little army" marched into the unknown against
the fiercest, most efficient military power the world, up to that time,
had known; the months when hidden enemies struck swiftly mystifying blows
with strange weapons, the more terrible because we did not understand them
and had never imagined their power and numbers.
For more than two years I have habitually sought to keep my mind upon
other subjects, yet I can recall those days now in the minutest detail. I
can hear the sudden thrum of the masked machine guns like giant partridges
drumming; can hear the singing roar of the Prussian airplanes to which, in
those days, because of the scarcity of British planes, there could be
practically no answer; and I can live again the frightful nights when we
made our stand upon the Marne, and, sneaking into German outpost trenches,
slew the guards with jack-knives, thrusting gags into their mouths and
cutting their throats to prevent outcry.
Those were the days of picturesque and shifty fighting. There was
movement, the rush of cannon from the rear, the charges of cavalry, the
perils of scouting and patrolling. It was little like the slow trench
warfare which followed.
The Black Watch--the regiment to which I belong--was one of the first to
cross the Channel. War was declared August 4th, which was Tuesday. The
first-class reservists, of which I was one, received their mobilization
orders the next day.
We assembled at Queens Barracks, Perth, the historic headquarters of what
we proudly maintain is the world's most famous fighting organization.
Twice before, since 1742, the Black Watch had outfitted in Perth to fight
in Flanders. Almost constantly since that date, battalions of the
regiment have been fighting for Britain in some far-off quarter of the
globe. For the third adventure in Flanders, which was to see the existing
personnel of the regiment practically wiped out in an imperatively
necessary campaign of blood sacrifice, our preparations were brisk and
businesslike. Within three hours of my arrival at the depot at Perth, I
was one of a thousand men, uniformed, armed, and fully equipped, who
entrained for Aldershot to join our first battalion stationed there.
On the thirteenth of August, after a week's stiff training, we boarded the
steamship _Italian Prince_ and the next day disembarked at Havre.
What awaited us there was much like the reception later given to the first
American troops to land in France. What followed was quite different. The
American troops, and millions of their friends and relatives, are all
wondering what awaits them--what war really will be like--what they will
have to do and the conditions under which they will do it.
It is an axiom of war that the first troops almost invariably suffer the
greatest losses. The first American units to go into the trenches have
suffered a low average of casualties. In one respect they are far better
off than were the first British and French troops to meet the Germans.
They know what they are going up against. Modern warfare is a determined
quantity. They know the methods of the men they will fight against and
they have allies able to instruct them in the art of fighting as it is
practised to-day.
We had nothing like that. It was as though we were groping in the dark
while an unseen foe was striking at us. For days we tramped through France
and Belgium hearing the roar of the German guns, feeling the sting of the
shrapnel, but not seeing our foes. Then came the shifty, open fighting,
now almost forgotten, which will not be resumed until the Germans are on
the run. When it comes it will be a welcome relief to the men who have
been battling, like rats, in trenches not fit for human beings to inhabit.
Well, to get back to what happened to us, the first "contemptible little
army," in France and Flanders.
The 19th of August found us billeted in a town called Boue. We had to
remain here a few days because the roads were blocked with transports
going toward the front. The entire regiment was allowed to go swimming in
a near-by canal and, as my chum and I were dressing, an old Frenchman gave
us each a half-franc piece, saying that it would give us good luck and
bring us through alive. It was the first money he had made as a boy and he
had kept it ever since. The last I heard of my chum was that he had been
discharged from active service because of wounds, and so it would appear
his half-franc piece really did bring him through, just as mine did me.
We left Boue on the twenty-first at three o'clock in the morning, and we
marched until three o'clock the next morning. All the time we could hear
the muffled booming of the German heavy artillery. It sounded just like
the noise they make on the stage when a battle is supposed to be in
progress in the distance. It excited the men and buoyed them up
wonderfully, but twenty-four hours is a long time to march without sleep,
and whenever we halted the men lay down in the mud of the road and lost
consciousness--but not for long. Within a few minutes after every halt,
the officers would come among us and rouse us, saying that we were badly
needed up where the guns were growling. It was hard, tiring work, but it
wasn't half so bad as what we got later, when we were retreating.
We didn't know it, but we were on our way to Mons to hold the left flank.
It was during a short halt in Grande Range that we had our first sight of
a German airplane. We were billeted in the houses and stables of the
village, and every one came running out to look at the plane when the
thrumming of the engine was heard. When it was right over our heads it let
fly a rack full of steel darts and they came clattering down into the
village streets. One stuck into the pavement in front of our quarters. It
was so deeply imbedded that not a man in the company could pull it out. [I
have seen one of these missiles go right through a house from roof to
cellar. They have been known to go through a horse and then bury
themselves in the ground.]
These steel darts were from eight inches to a foot long, cut so that they
would fall point downward. Dozens of them were contained in a single
rack, which the aviator released when he was over his target; the speed of
the machine caused them to scatter. They would go through anything they
hit, but they were found to be too inaccurate and not so economical as
explosives.
After the plane had passed we were rushed to the outskirts of the village,
where we began to entrench. By morning, we had nearly finished the shallow
trenches which, in that day, were regarded as sufficient protection for
infantry in the field. At daybreak our High Command had information that
our position along the highway would prove untenable. Wearily enough, we
marched to a range of wooded hills where we again entrenched. German heavy
shells found us there, so we were compelled to retire to another village,
near which we entrenched once more, on still higher ground. The German air
scouts were watching us, however, and in this new position a heavier fire
from long-range artillery found us.
All of this was on August 25th, two days after our forced march of
twenty-four hours. The weather was extremely hot and we were well-nigh
exhausted by the work of digging three sets of trenches. We lay and "took"
the German fire. We had already had some casualties, the wooden steeple of
the church in the village on our right was in flames, and several houses
had been destroyed by the German shelling--and we hadn't _yet_ seen a
German, except the airplane scouts. But they were not long coming into
view.
As we lay in our shallow trenches, a big shell every now and then falling
amongst us, another regiment, retreating under heavy fire, broke into view
from the woods, a mile or more in front of our line. We soon made them
out--the Scots Guards, hotly pursued by a superior force of Uhlans, and,
as the German commander fondly believed, near capture. We, in our
trenches, were in a fever to get our fire on the Germans but they were so
close upon the Guards that we dared not fire a shot. The Guards, putting
up a stiff fight directly in front of our position, checked the Uhlans
sufficiently to enable their own organization to continue its retreat,
swinging over in the direction of our left flank. This gave us our chance
and we poured a hot rifle and machine-gun fire into the pursuing force.
We were in action against the Boches, at last! and, furthermore, we had
the satisfaction of seeing that our fire was effective. The Uhlans, whose
attention now was forcibly distracted from the hard-pressed Guards to us,
immediately advanced in our direction, dismounting at 1,200 yards distance
and returning our fire. Leaving their horses behind a ridge, they crept up
on us to within 500 yards.
At this point, a water cart belonging to the Guards, which had been hidden
in a thicket, popped out, and was being driven in the direction of their
regiment. A party of about thirty Uhlans galloped after it. We turned some
of our fire on them. I think they were all toppled over, horses and men
alike. Then another party of about five thousand Uhlans made toward us at
a gallop and charged, but there were few of them that got to within one
hundred yards of our single shallow trench. By this time the Scots Guards
had got into position and opened fire on the Boche cavalry.
Three times the Germans tried to secure the water cart, thinking no doubt
it was an ammunition wagon. When the cart was about one hundred and fifty
yards from our trench the horses were shot down by the Uhlans. One of the
men on it was wounded through the arm, and the other coolly filled his
water bottle and bathed his comrade's wound, regardless of the Huns who
were still peppering away. We shouted to the two boys to hurry and come
into safety. The wounded one's answer was:
"Safety be damned! Some of you Jocks come out here and give us a pull with
the water cart."
Men of our _H_ company, nearest to the cart, asked permission to go to the
rescue. Their officers acquiesced and sixteen of them rushed out, cut the
cart loose from the dead horses, and dragged it to safety behind the ridge
which we were holding. Three of the sixteen were hit. There were especial
reasons for this bit of valour. Our own water bottles were empty, our
water cart drained dry, and we were choking with thirst.
It was now the time of the Scots Guards to help us. They kept a steady
fire on the Uhlans while we retired behind the ridge to fall in on the
main road to Hautmont and retreat to the next spot where we could make a
temporary stand. While we were falling back to the main road, a man from
each section filled three water bottles from the rescued cart. We didn't
know when we would get water again, nor how far our tired feet must carry
us. In this exhausted state we began the furious fatal struggle against an
overwhelming and irresistible enemy which is known in history as the
Retreat from Mons.
Of that fearful time, I have lost track of dates. I do not want to
remember them. All I recollect is that, under a blazing August sun--our
mouths caked, our tongues parched--day after day we dragged ourselves
along, always fighting rear-guard actions, our feet bleeding, our backs
breaking, our hearts sore. Our unmounted officers limped amongst us, blood
oozing through their spats. With a semblance of cheeriness they told us
that we must retreat because the Russians were on their way to Berlin and
we must keep the Germans moving in the opposite direction. When we got a
few minutes' respite there would be an issue of "gunfire"--the
traditional British army term for tea served out to men in action. It was
of a nondescript flavour, commingling the negative qualities of
"bully-beef stew" and the very positive taste of kerosene oil, the cooks'
hurricane lamps being stored in the camp-kettles during each of our
retirements. Invariably--and I mean in twenty instances--the shells would
begin to drop amongst us before we could finish our portions, eating,
though we did, with ravenous haste; and when it was not artillery fire
that stopped our feeding it would be a charge of Uhlans, compelling us to
drop half-emptied mess-tins and seize rifles.
We had no artillery to speak of, and very few airplanes. If we had had
more of the latter, there might have been another story. The Germans
seemed to know every move we made, but we were blind. We dropped into a
field and killed a bullock, skinned it and were cooking it. There came the
roar of a powerful engine; a German plane circled over us and went sailing
back, signalling our position. A few minutes later shrapnel fell among us
and we went on, some of the men in ambulances. Those that were killed we
hurriedly buried, but there was not time even to put improvised wooden
crosses at their heads.
One of our slightly wounded, in the broad accents of lowland Scotch,
cursed the Germans--not for wounding him, but for knocking over his
canteen of tea. A hail of flying shrapnel struck down a cook; the men of
his section cursed in chorus for the misfortune which meant that hunger
would be added to their other miseries.
Not once alone did we spring up from eating to fight the Uhlans with rifle
fire and bayonet. It happened a dozen times. Whenever the Uhlans came, we
fought them off, but always we had to retreat in the end, for the German
reserves were numberless while ours scarcely existed.