I had about got settled in the stable where I was billeted, when orders
came to "stand to." No more sleep that night. We took the road and left La
Grange behind us just as the sun was pinking the sky. It was Sunday, and,
although we knew war was no respecter of the Sabbath, we had not been in
the field long enough to get the idea quite out of our heads that Sunday,
somehow, in the nature of things, was a little easier than other days.
When we halted in a ravine at about ten o'clock in the morning, after
marching four hours, we thought after all that it was going to be an
easier day. I was on outpost duty on a side road a little way from the
main thoroughfare we had been following.
Suddenly an infernal racket broke out over to our left. First there came a
few scattered cracks of rifle fire. Then I could hear clip firing and the
rattle of machine guns. I learned later that the Scots Greys and the 12th
Lancers had come across about seven thousand Germans resting in a wide
gully. The Greys and the Lancers, catching them unawares by cutting down
their sentries who had no opportunity even to give the alarm--charged
through them, then back again. Three times they repeated their
performance, while some of our brigade got on to the flanks and poured in
such a rapid fire that the Prussians had no opportunity to re-form to meet
each repetition of the attack. The details do not matter, but they made up
for the annihilation of the Munster Fusiliers.
In the newspaper accounts of the campaign this incident was described as
the "Great St. Quentin Charge," in which, it was asserted, the Black Watch
(foot soldiers) participated, holding onto the stirrups of the Scots
Greys. This bit of colouring was an inaccuracy. We aided the Greys and the
Lancers with rifle and machine-gun fire only. When the firing ceased and
the Greys and the Lancers came cantering past, we learned from them the
details of the Battle of "St. Quentin."
At nightfall our section was still guarding the road at a point from
which a cart road branched off at right angles to the main thoroughfare.
It was here that the outpost received instructions in a few French
phrases, the main one being "_Votre passe, s'il vous plait_." ("Your pass,
please.") This was because the road was open to refugees who were fleeing
from the Boches, and who had to show passes before being allowed to go on.
The absence of the pass meant that the person would be sent to
headquarters for examination.
It was quite natural that some of us Scots should find it difficult to
make ourselves familiar with these phrases. However, we were all willing
to try. One strapping Highlander, weary and footsore but daunted by
nothing, practised the phrases dutifully, though the French words were
almost lost in the encounter with his native Scotch. We chuckled, but he
merely glowered at us indignantly, and then went to take his place on
sentry go. Two Frenchmen came along in a wagon. The Highlander blocked
their way and sternly uttered what he conceived to be the phrase he had
been told to use. The Frenchmen sat mystified. There was a roar of
laughter when the Highlander, losing patience, shouted: "Pass us if ye
daur!" Then his sergeant came to the rescue.
These two Frenchmen in the wagon were the last refugees to pass. Soon
afterward, from my station farther down the road, I heard a clatter of
hoofs and caught a glimpse of Uhlans' helmets. I had barely time to pass
the word to the man on the next post and to jump behind a log before they
came into view. They were riding, full gallop into our lines, apparently
having abandoned ordinary scouting precautions in their eagerness to
strike where and when they might against our worn and lacerated forces.
We, now, had fought so long that we fought mechanically. Over my
protecting log, I aimed at the leading horseman as precisely and carefully
as if I had been at rifle practice. When I pulled the trigger he tumbled
into the road, rolled over awkwardly, and lay still. I did not feel as if
I had killed a man. I felt only a mild sense of satisfaction with the
accuracy of my aim. Bitter hate for the Huns had sprung in the heart of
every one of us after what we had that day seen of their savagery.
I had got my Uhlan at, perhaps, seventy yards. His fall checked the
squad's advance for a moment only. The man nearest grasped at the bridle
of the dead man's horse but missed it. On they all came, galloping
recklessly and yelling, the riderless horse leading by a half dozen
lengths. As they rode, they fired in my direction, but their bullets went
wide. I felt real compunction as I aimed at the head of the leading
horse--the one whose rider I had shot down with only a sense of
satisfaction. I could hear our men crashing through the bushes by the road
as they came to my support. I fired. My bullet must have struck the
riderless horse in the brain, for he fell instantly, sprawled out in the
path of the galloping Huns behind. The horses of the leaders stumbled over
the fallen animal. A rattle of shots from our men completed the confusion
of the Uhlans. They turned their horses and galloped away--some back along
the road, others across the fields. Several fell under our fire; how many
we had no time to ascertain.
After that little affair we organized our position for a somewhat better
defence. Leaving a few scouts, far advanced, we stationed our men in easy
touch with each other and then cut down a number of trees and telegraph
poles and barricaded the road with them. There were sixteen of us in the
post near this barricade, concealed from view and able to communicate with
each other in whispers. The hours dragged on to midnight and past. We were
weary to the bone--half dead for want of sleep--but we dared not relax our
vigilance for an instant.
The surrounding country was dense with woods. The moon was almost new, so
consequently the poles were quite invisible a few yards away.
At about one o'clock in the morning I heard something crackling through
the brush on the side road. My bayonet was fixed and I was ready to fire.
The crackling came nearer. I crept stealthily forward to meet whatever it
was. Presently a man stepped into the road. "Halt!" I cried. He halted at
once, and gave the word "Friend." It was one of our sentries with a
message that Uhlans were coming along the road. Three men were farther
down the road; they had hidden so that the Uhlans would pass them, the
sentry said.
A section of us concealed ourselves--and waited. Presently the Uhlans came
into sight, proceeding cautiously. Half of us were instructed to withhold
fire until the Prussians should reach the barricade. The remainder began
to fire. The horsemen scattered to each side of the road and returned the
fire, but as we were not discernible, the shots went wild. I judged that
they numbered about fifty. We dropped a few of them. They were becoming
enraged--their fire ineffective. They mounted; and the leader spurred his
horse, and, followed by the others, galloped in our direction. Their
carbines spat red flashes into the night. Their bullets were coming closer
now, because they could determine where we were lying in the ditches at
the side of the road from the flashes of our rifles.
"Will they see the trees across the roadway?" was the thought that darted
through my mind. If they should, it would probably be all up with us. As
they came very close to the barricade, they did notice it. They made a
bold leap across, but having underestimated the number of logs there, they
found themselves in great confusion. Some of them were pinned under their
fallen horses. At this point, we opened fire, which completed their
discomfiture. Above the sound of our rifle firing we could hear the
now-familiar cry of "_Kamerad!_" "_Kamerad!_" It only served to infuriate
us and made us shoot all the faster.
This might well arouse against us the criticism of those who never
witnessed atrocities committed by the Huns, but you must remember that our
blood had not come down to normal from the effects of the sights we
ourselves had come across.
At last, we leaped out to make prisoners of the trapped Uhlans. Those who
could, bolted back in the direction they came from, but it was a sure
thing that twelve of them were missing when the roll was called.
One might consider that a night's work, but it wasn't.
It was now my turn for sentry go on the main road, which was still open
for vehicles of our staff. This was a post where it was thought that, to
use an American phrase, there would be "nothing doing"; yet it was here
that I came face to face with one of the war's finest examples of Teutonic
over-assurance--boldness that would have been splendid had it not been
stupid.
After I had been at my new post an hour, it then being near three o'clock
in the morning, a motor car came swiftly toward me. I had been warned that
I might expect staff officers to pass, and this, I thought, was
undoubtedly some of them--otherwise the car would have advanced slowly. I
stepped into the road and awaited its approach. As it neared me I saw that
the two officers it contained wore the uniforms of the British staff. I
could see the red tabs on their collars.
There were two telegraph poles across the road near my post. Remembering
this, I showed myself and called for the chauffeur to halt. He checked the
car's speed but brought it ahead slowly. I shouted for the countersign. I
was waiting for the occupants of the car to give it, intending to explain
to them that they would have to stop until I called some one to help me
remove the telegraph poles, when there was a sudden grinding of gears and
the car shot ahead, full speed. I yelled a warning about the poles but the
words left my lips at about the moment when the car bounced over them.
Until that time I had no suspicion that the occupants of the car were not
what they seemed. Even then, the manner in which they "rushed" my post
seemed to me only due to some inexplicable misunderstanding. But I had
marched, and fought, and gone sleepless and hungry until I was little more
than a mechanical soldier. I was able to realize only that somebody, for
some reason, had ignored my challenge and rushed a sentry post. I swung my
rifle in the direction of the car, aimed accurately (in an automatic way),
and pulled the trigger. The noise of an exploding tire followed the crack
of my weapon. The car skidded, twisted for a moment, and then went
on--faster than ever.
My shot aroused our outpost. The alarm was given to the first of the
connecting sentries and passed along quickly until it reached our company
headquarters, on the roadside opposite to a chateau in which Brigade
Staff headquarters had been established. Men half awake, tumbled into the
roadway preparing to fire on something or somebody--they didn't know what.
It was useless for the car to attempt to rush the crowd. Again the
chauffeur checked it, this time bringing it to a full stop. One of the
occupants (who, it will be remembered, were in staff uniform) demanded
sharply of the sentry in front of the chateau:
"What is the meaning of this? Are there nothing but blockheads about here?
We have been fired on while looking for Brigade headquarters. Somebody
should be court-martialled for this."
The sentry saluted them and admitted them to the grounds of the chateau.
Their car had disappeared within the gates when I came running down the
road and informed my company commander what had happened. He instantly
ordered our men to surround the chateau and rushed in himself, following
the car up the avenue leading through the grounds. The "staff officers"
had abandoned their car in the shadow of a clump of trees and were
seeking to escape over the garden wall when our men captured them. One of
them, speaking English without a trace of accent, still tried to "bluff"
our men who seized him, and his assumed indignation was so convincing
that, but for the direct orders from the company commander, the men might
have released him, believing him really an officer of our forces. Each of
the two wore the uniform of a staff major with all the proper badges and
insignia. It was found that they were German spies with rough maps of the
disposition of our retreating forces and other valuable information in
their possession. I was informed, later, that they were shot.
Before dawn, we got orders to retire again. It was always retire--retire.
We were ready to fight ten times our number if only we could stop
retiring.
Shortly after leaving this position we saw an airplane overhead. A few
minutes later shrapnel began bursting in our direction. We scattered to
each side of the highway, keeping under cover as best we could.
We marched all day--God knows how far--and finally, between one and two
the following morning, reached a place which we believed to be Pinon.