Most of the time while we were dragging our exhausted, diminishing numbers
ahead of the German wave of shot and steel, I was on scout duty. For a
while, I was "connecting file" between the Black Watch and the Munster
Fusiliers who were in rear of us and _almost constantly_ in touch with the
enemy. I had more than one narrow escape from capture or death.
On one occasion the regiment had been deployed to beat off a flank attack.
When we resumed the march I was sent back to get in touch with the
Fusiliers. My orders were to go to the rear until I got in touch with
them. I was proceeding cautiously along the road when suddenly around a
curve something appeared before me. My rifle was at my shoulder ready to
fire. Then I recognized what had been a uniform of the Fusiliers.
Have you ever read Kipling's "Man Who Came Back"? If you have, you will
have a better idea than I can give you of what this human being looked
like. His face was covered with blood. One arm hung limply. Just as he
made toward me, he fell exhausted by the roadside, like a dog that is
spent. Literally, his tongue hung from his mouth. His shoes were cut up
and his clothes dangled in ribbons beneath which red gashes showed in his
flesh where he had torn it in the barbed-wire fences he had encountered,
crossing fields.
I asked him what had happened. His lips moved and his breath came in more
difficult gasps, but no word could he utter. I wiped his face, and then I
recognized in him an officer who had been a crack athlete when the
Munsters were in India and against whom I had competed more than once. I
pressed my water bottle to his lips. After a few moments he was able to
speak.
"They are gone!" he gasped; "all of them are gone! By God, they died like
men; but--they--died."
"Let me understand you, sir," I begged him. "Tell me just what happened."
"Where are you going?" he almost shouted.
"I am going back to get in touch with the Munster Fusiliers," I said.
"You can't make the journey," he panted. "You'd have to go to heaven--or
to hell. They caught them in a pocket. Shrapnel and machine-guns. _There
are no Munster Fusiliers any more._"
He was right, practically. The Germans had caught them between fires and
the regiment was cut to pieces.
Helping the officer as best I could, I hurried forward to catch up with my
own regiment. When I got in touch with it I left the Fusilier officer with
the commander of the first company I met. Then I hurried to the Company
commander.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I am here, to report, sir," I said. "There is no use trying to get in
touch with the Fusiliers. They have been cut off."
"Your orders were to go back until you got in touch with them," he said
gruffly. "Consider yourself under arrest."
A non-commissioned officer and two men, with fixed bayonets, were put on
guard over me. I had disobeyed orders, technically, and during those
first days in France many a stern act was necessary, for the army had to
learn the discipline of war.
I would have been tied to a spare wheel at the back of an artillery
caisson, but as they were leading me away I asked to speak to my sergeant.
I explained to him what had happened and he told my company commander, who
found the officer of the Fusiliers. The latter, meanwhile, had been taken
care of by our officers and was now in condition to talk. He spoke to the
colonel (Col. Grant Duff), explaining just what had happened and telling
him that he had directed me to return to my regiment. I was liberated, but
it was a mighty close escape from disgrace, which, after all, is worse
than death, especially to a soldier.
After that I was sent out to scout on the left flank with my partner,
Troolen, who was of a daredevil disposition and worked in a noisy fashion,
and so when I saw something moving in the brushwood on a ridge we were
approaching, and heard a sound like the trample of horses on the other
side, I cautioned him to remain where he was while I explored it. Troolen
swore he could hear nothing and was for muddling ahead and running into
anything that might be there, but I was in command and I ordered him to
wait. Sneaking from stone to stone and from tree to tree, I worked myself
to a little pocket which seemed scalloped out of the crest of the ridge
and found the ground there all freshly trampled, with other signs that
horses had left it recently. There were no wheel marks, so I knew that it
was cavalry, not artillery. From the marks of the iron shoes I could tell
that they were of a different type from ours.
Uhlans had been there.
I signalled to Troolen and he joined me. Climbing to the crest of the
ridge we saw the enemy in large numbers moving toward the road on which we
were marching, and they were ahead of us. As we hurried toward our
regiment we heard others in the rear.
As fast as I could, I made my way to the Company commander and reported
what I had seen. Almost at the same moment we were fired upon. The rifle
fire was immediately followed by artillery shelling. Patrols on the other
flank had made sketches of the country and orders were issued for the
regiment to take cover in a gully which was across some fields and the
other side of a small woods. The men ducked through a wire fence which was
at the side of the road and sections of it were torn to let the combat
wagons through.
As we retreated we kept up a steady fire, forcing the Uhlans close to
their cover, but the artillery continually sprayed over the field.
Thus began for us the Battle of the Oise.
We had little hope of any support. We knew we had to fight it out alone,
and there was little enough ammunition. I was running and ducking for the
next bit of cover from behind which I could use my rifle, when a shell
exploded behind me. It threw me from my feet but I was unhurt and as I
jumped up I heard a crashing and splintering a few feet away. One of the
horses on an ammunition wagon had been struck. He was plunging on the
ground, terrifying his team mate and kicking the wagon to pieces. The
transport officer, C. R. B. Henderson, drew his revolver and shot the
animal.
The Uhlans must have had reinforcements for they were getting bolder. The
bullets were cutting up little spurts of dust and turf all about us. They
were singing overhead like a gale in the ropes and spars of a transport at
sea. The Germans were firing at the ammunition wagon in the hope of
blowing it up.
I was just about to run for cover again when I saw Lieut. Henderson--he
who had shot the transport horse--walk calmly up (leading his own animal)
and cut the dead one from the traces. I didn't care about being killed,
but I couldn't leave this officer, who was standing there as though he
were on parade, except that his hands were working ten times as fast as
they ever did at drill. Together we got the dead animal free and harnessed
the lieutenant's horse to the wagon. We used one of the lieutenant's
spiral puttees to mend the cut and broken harness. The driver of the
ammunition wagon was holding the head of the other horse, shaking his fist
at the Germans, and swearing at them with a heavy Scotch burr.
Men were running past us like rabbits. Some of them were tumbling like
rabbits, too, when a steel-nosed bullet found its mark. I saw others
stoop, just long enough to get an arm under the shoulders of a comrade and
then drag him along. A few lay still and a single look into their faces
showed that it would be useless to carry them. The running men dropped
behind stones, hillocks, trees--anything that was likely to afford cover
and stop bullets--and their rifles snapped angrily at the Germans whose
fire was getting heavier, but who still did not dare an open attack.
At last the harness was ready. The ammunition driver leaped to his seat
and the wagon went careening toward the ravine, swaying crazily, with a
storm of shots tearing up the turf around its wheels. We needed that wagon
badly. In a moment it would be over the crest of the rise and we would be
sure of that much ammunition to fight with.
"Get on to the wagon, sir," I shouted to the officer, as it dashed
forward; but he did not heed me.
"In a second we shall be where we can fight them off," was all he said.
A Uhlan's horse, with empty saddle, galloped up to us. I seized the
dangling reins.
"Mount him, sir," I shouted. He took the reins from my hand and attempted
to leap into the saddle. The horse was cut and bleeding, and unmanageable
from terror. He backed toward the ammunition wagon, which had not yet made
the ridge, dragging the officer with him. I followed.
Just as we thus neared the wagon, a shell exploded close at hand. The
wagon humped up in the middle as if it had been made of whalebone. It
rocked from side to side, almost upsetting. Then it settled back upon its
wrecked wheels. A high explosive shell had struck directly under it. The
two horses fell, dead from shrapnel or shock, and the driver toppled from
his seat, dead, between them, a red smear across his face.
The small-arms ammunition in the wagon had not been exploded. The doors of
the wagon were thrown open by the concussion of the shell, causing the
bandoliers of cartridges to scatter. The officer motioned to me to help
distribute the ammunition to our men as they ran past; upon finishing this
task we joined the last of our party and were very soon over the crest.
We had only a few machine guns, but we got them in place. The Uhlans were
charging across the field.
A shrill whistle blew.----The machine guns began to rattle. Down went
horses and riders, plunging about where some of our own men lay. Our rifle
fire, too, was getting stronger, better controlled, more co-ordinated. We
were sheltered; the enemy was in the open. His artillery was useless, for
we were coming to grips. Line after line, they broke into the field,
lances set. The horses were stretching out low over the turf--over the
turf where a moment later they were to kick out the last of their breath,
pinning under them many a rider to whom we were paying the debt of the
Munster Fusiliers.
A bugle sounded.----Those that were left of the Uhlans galloped off. The
little machine guns had done their work.
Our attention was then attracted to a heavy fire, directed from some
unknown quarter upon a near-by field in which was confined a large herd of
light brown cattle, their colour identical with that of our khaki
uniforms. The animals were milling about madly; a dozen of them already
were down and others were falling each moment. Here was one of the humours
of war. We laughed, believing that the Germans were firing upon the dying
beasts, mistaking them for us--"The Ladies from Hell," as they called us.
The Scots Greys, which regiment had come up at this critical moment to
occupy the high ground on our right flank about six hundred yards away,
through the fierceness of their enfilading fire, managed to keep the enemy
at a standstill and so allowed the Black Watch to retreat to safety.
We owed our lives to kind fate in bringing the Scots Greys to our timely
aid, and to them all honour! But for them we should have met the fate of
the Munster Fusiliers.
Crawling on their bellies, some of our men went out and brought in those
of the Black Watch who were lying wounded. The others we left, for their
own men would be there presently. For us, it was retreat again. After
traversing ditches, ravines and barbed-wire fences, we finally assembled
on the road. The artillery was beginning to pound once more. We had to
trudge on, watching for the next attack, planting one bleeding foot before
another, with nobody knew how many days of forced marching before
us--marching (so we thought) to let the Russians get to Berlin. I don't
think anything else would have induced us to resume our retreat after the
brush with the Uhlans.
At evening we found ourselves at the village of Oise about six miles from
the abovementioned scene. As we arrived at the bridge over the River Oise,
the engineers who were on the other side, and who had fused the bridge,
shouted to us to keep back, but our colonel gave us the order to double.
We had cleared the bridge by about only two hundred yards, when it blew up
into atoms!
After trudging, mostly uphill, in a downpour of rain, we reached a place
called Guise at 2 A.M. Here we managed to get some food. I was glad enough
to throw my waterproof sheet over me and fall asleep. On being awakened, I
felt as though I had slept for weeks, but found it had only been for one
hour and twenty minutes. We then received some "gunfire" and our _first_
issue of rum. We resumed the march. On arriving at La Grange, the
Camerons, or what was left of them, joined us, taking the place of the
annihilated Fusiliers in our brigade.
We were so tired that night that I could have slept on a bed of nails,
points up, but we had not been in our billets very long when we were
ordered out, as the outpost had reported the approach of Uhlans in
considerable numbers.
We were half asleep as we ran down into the street to our allotted posts.
One of the first persons we encountered in the town was a Frenchman,
raving mad. We asked him what was the matter, but he could not reply. He
jibbered like an ape; his twitching lips slavered and foamed. Some of his
neighbours took him in hand and led him away. One of them told us his
story:
"The Prussians came in here yesterday. There was no one to resist them.
They posted sentries. Then those who were not on duty broke into cellars.
Casks of wine were rolled up into the streets, and, where squads gathered
together, there were piles of bottles. The soldiers did not stop to pull
the corks. They knocked off the necks of the bottles and filled their
aluminum cups with red wine and white, mixing one type with another, and
swilling it in as fast as they could drink. Dozens of them fell in the
gutters, drunk. Others reeled through the village, abusing and insulting
men and women alike. If a man resisted, he was shot. This poor fellow,
whom you have seen, was in his door yard with his wife. A Prussian seized
her about the waist. She struggled. He crushed her to him with his brutish
arm. His companions, all drunk, laughed and jeered. The woman's clothes
were ripped from her shoulders in her struggle. Meanwhile others bound the
husband to one of his own fruit trees, so that he could not escape the
horror of it. One--more drunken, more bestial than the others--slashed off
the woman's breasts and threw them to a dog. The woman died."
This of itself was enough to have made us rage against the enemy whom
hitherto we had regarded as an honourable foe, but it was not all. I, with
other members of my own company, came upon a nail driven into the wall of
a barn from which hung, by the mouth, the lifeless form of a baby. The
child was dead when we found it, but it had died hanging from the rusty
nail. I know it had, because I saw upon the wall the marks of finger-nails
where the baby had clawed and scratched. And besides, a dead body would
not have bled. An officer ordered the removal of the child's body.
I do not tell these things for the sake of the horror of them. I would
rather not tell them. I have spent months trying to forget them. Now that
I have recalled them, I wake in the night so horrified that I cannot move.
But to relate them may serve one useful purpose. There are those in
America, as there were in England, who believed that war to repel invasion
was justified, but who were not enthusiastic for war abroad. America
entered the war after her patience was absolutely exhausted, and Americans
should be devoutly thankful that they can fight abroad and not have to
endure the presence of a single Prussian soldier on American soil. What we
saw and learned in Guise galvanized our weary bodies to new efforts
against the vandals whom we were fighting. With clenched teeth and curses
we turned to fight again.
The Uhlans got into the outskirts of the town and cut down a number of our
men, but, inch by inch, as they drove toward the centre of the village,
our resistance became stiffer and stiffer. It was like a nightmare. The
charging horses, the gruff shouts of the enemy, the groans of the men who
fell beside me, were like their counterparts in a dream. My finger pressed
the trigger of the rifle feverishly. Even when I saw the men I fired at
topple from their saddles and sprawl on the cobblestones, I had only a
dull sense that I had scored a hit.
Just as we were throwing the enemy back in some confusion, a party of
British worked round a back street and fired on them from the rear. A
second later a machine gun began strewing the ground with horses and men.
Squads of them threw up their hands and cried: "_Kamerad!
Kamerad!_"--which was not a new cry on the part of the Prussians. A young
fellow by my side stopped firing for a moment, but the rest of us knew
better. The Camerons had lost a score of men the day before because they
had taken the Germans at their word, and, when they went to make them
prisoners, a whole company of Prussians had risen from behind the crest to
a hill and shot the Camerons down. So bullets from our rifles answered the
cries of "_Kamerad!_"
A few of the enemy escaped down side streets, and a number of them
remained lying where they had been shot. While we were on our way back to
quarters, a Frenchman came up out of his basement and motioned us to
follow him. We went into the cellar and found half a dozen Prussians lying
there dead drunk. We made them prisoners and sent them to headquarters.