Brothers-in-Arms
Whatever Christians who profess more do in reference to brotherly love,
British soldiers are real brothers to each other on active service.
Each man seems to say, "He that sheds his blood with me, shall be my
brother."
The following is from a sergeant's letter in _The Evening News_: "Out
there sublime deeds of heroism are being performed every day by common
soldiers whom the ordinary 'civvy' would pass by with contempt in times
of peace. After Cambrai I was thrown a lot with a wild Glasgow Irishman
belonging to the Royal Scots and a wounded man of the Dorsets. We took
refuge in a farmhouse, and one day the Irishman had the ill-luck of
showing himself to a party of Germans on the prowl. He took it into
his head that he hadn't played the game by bringing the Germans down
on us, and after reporting their presence he said he was going out
just for a bit of a dander. He had not an earthly chance of escaping.
Before he left I told him so, but that didn't weigh with him at all.
'It's like this,' he said, 'you've got a missus and children to look
after. So's that chap in the corner. I'm as bad as they make 'em, and
nobody will be a thraneen the poorer if I'm shot this very minute. It
was my carelessness in going about that gave us away to the Germans.
They don't know there's anybody here but me, and if I rush out they'll
get me and go off content. He walked coolly out to the front gate, and
made a rush into the fields to the left. The Germans saw him and fired.
He fell riddled with bullets, and they went after him. They must have
thought that he was the only man in the house, for they didn't come
back, and we lay there for three days until we managed to get back to
our own lines."
Another man also thought of wife and kids. "In a night fight one of
the Gloucesters had his rifle knocked out of his hand, and a big
German lunged at him with a bayonet. Quick as lightning one of his
mates sprang between him and the German, and received the thrust in
his chest. He died within an hour, and when they asked him why he did
it, his answer was, 'Oh, God, I couldn't help it. He's got a wife and
kids.'"
A corporal of the Bedfordshire Regiment wrote: "Near our trenches there
were a lot of wounded, and their cries for water were pitiful. In the
trenches was a quiet chap of the Engineers, who could stand it no
longer. He collected all the water bottles he could lay hold of, and
said he was going out. The air was thick with shell and rifle fire, and
to show yourself at all was to sign your death warrant. That chap knew
it as well as we did, but that was not going to stop him. He got to the
first man all right and gave him a swig from a bottle. No sooner did
he show himself than the Germans opened fire. After attending to the
first man he crawled along the ground to others until he was about a
quarter of a mile away from us. Then he stood up and zigzagged towards
another batch of wounded, but that was the end of him. The German fire
got hotter and hotter. He was hit badly, and with just a slight upward
fling of his arms he dropped to earth like the hero he was. Later he
was picked up with the wounded, but he was as dead as they make them
out here. The wounded men for whose sake he had risked and lost his
life thought a lot of him, and were greatly cut up at his death. One
of them who was hit so hard that he would never see another Sunday
said to me as we passed the Engineer chap, who lay with a smile on his
white face, and had more bullets in him than would set a battalion of
sharpshooters up in business for themselves, 'He was a rare good one,
he was. It's something worth living for to have seen a deed like that,
and now that I have seen it, I don't care what becomes of me.' That's
what we all felt about it."
One of the King's Royal Rifles told in a letter how a Highlander milked
a cow under rifle and shell fire to get something for his wounded
mates to drink when the water ran out. Also how a boy of the Connaught
Rangers rushed out of the trenches under heavy fire to an orchard near
by to get an apple for a wounded comrade who was suffering from thirst
and hunger. "He got the apple all right, but he got a German bullet or
two in him as well on the way back, and dropped dead within 50 feet of
the goal. The wounded chap had his apple brought in after an artillery
man had been wounded in getting at it. I hope he valued it, for it was
the costliest apple I ever heard tell of bar one, and that was a long
time ago."
Sergeant J. Rolfe, 2nd Battalion King's Royal Rifles, wrote: "When
I got hit, I couldn't say how long I lay there, but a chum of mine,
Tommy Quaife, under a perfect hail of bullets and shells, dragged me to
safety, and said, 'Cheer up, Smiler, here's a fag. I'm going back for
Sandy' (his other chum). He never got there. Poor Tommy got a piece of
shell and was buried the same night."
In a lancer charge near Cambrai a man dropped a letter. It had arrived
just as the order was given to mount, and he had not had time to read
it. Even in mid-charge a comrade saw it fall out of his tunic and
returned it at great risk.
Two Highlanders were carrying a wounded comrade, and he dropped a
stick of chocolate, a thing of which only soldiers in the field under
trying conditions know the value. He fretted and worried about it, and
at last one of his chums volunteered to go back for it to where it
had been dropped, not more than two hundred yards away. He never came
back. In full view of his companions he was hit by a bullet and fell
dead. There was another case where a religious Dublin Fusilier lost his
life because he stayed just long enough to cross the hands of a dead
comrade, and say a prayer for his departed soul.
One night a man of the West Yorkshire Regiment took off his coat
and wrapped it around a wounded chum who had to lie there until the
ambulance took him away. All that night he stood in the trenches in his
shirt-sleeves, with water up to his waist, and the temperature near to
freezing point, quietly returning the German fire. On the afternoon of
the following day he had acute pneumonia.
The following was related by a British Hussar. After the charge of the
Highlanders on the German heavy guns near Hanbourdin the Hussar was
sent with a message to the base. On the way he encountered a Seaforth
Highlander going in the same direction. Something in the man's set
face prompted the question: "Are you hurt?" "Aye, a sma' matter," was
the reply. The man's arm was shattered from shoulder to elbow. "Are you
going to sick bay?" said the cavalryman. "It's a mile and a half away.
Get on my gee." "No, no," said the Scot, "I'll just walk, you'll find
many worse hit than me."
Private D.F. Gilmore, of the Seaforth Highlanders, told this in a
letter: "It was on the Aisne. We had had a hard day. Our casualties
were greater than I care to tell. I was with a fatigue party collecting
the wounded and burying the dead. We came on a sergeant of artillery
and about twenty wounded men. The sergeant was nearest and I signed
to my mates to take him first. He waved us away. 'I can wait. Get the
others first. They're much worse.' That was what he said. We persisted.
He got angry. 'I'm your superior in rank, and if you disobey I'll
report you for insubordination.' That settled it, so we started on the
others. We got the last away, and came back for the sergeant. He was
stone dead. Unknown to us he had been bleeding to death. He must have
known that when he made us attend to the others. Had he been taken at
first his life would have been saved."
The night before the beginning of the same battle of the Aisne, two
men of the Middlesex Regiment had a disagreement and came to blows. The
conqueror was struck with shrapnel next day, and the man who was beaten
endangered his life to save him. When he had nearly dragged him to a
place of safety a shell killed both men.
A stretcher party came on seven men wounded. Only six could be taken,
and the problem was to select the seventh. One man solved it. "I'm
the worst case," he said. "If you take me I'll probably die on the
way. These other chaps will all pull through and make good soldiers
yet. Leave me. You won't? Well, if you try to take me I'll resist, and
that'll be the end of me, so you'd better let me have my way." What
could they do but let him have his way? And so he was left. An hour
later they came back, and he was dead.
"There were two men of the Camerons who had been chums since their
boyhood" (writes Sergeant R. Duffy, Rifle Brigade). "They had 'listed
together, and been in I don't know how many scrapes and 'scraps' side
by side. In the fighting around Ypres one night one of them got hit in
a bayonet fight. The regiment had to return to the trenches, leaving
the wounded to take their chance for the time being out in the cold.
The wounded man's chum caught sight of him lying in the roadway with
the pallor of death in his face, and his teeth chattering with the
terrible cold. 'My God, Jock,' he exclaimed, 'is it you that's lying
there? A canna' lee ye, so a'll stay wi' ye tae the morn.' The wounded
man wouldn't hear of it, but his chum meant to have his way, and he got
it. Next morning we had a look for the two, and we found them side by
side--both dead. They had crept together under their greatcoats to keep
warm, but death had found them all the same."
A cavalry sergeant, though he had got three wounds, went to a badly
wounded corporal who was shouting to be taken out of the way of the
line. The wounded sergeant bound up the other man's wound, set him
on his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then the sergeant
limped along on foot as best he could after his regiment to fight again.
W. Roberts, 1st Life Guards, wrote to a friend how his regiment gave
timely and thoughtful assistance: "We were sent to help the Queen's
Regiment one day. It was just getting dark, and it had been raining
for three days without stopping. We were only just in time, and they
had given up all hope. The Germans were just about to charge them, but
when they saw us they made it 'as you were.' We helped to carry out the
wounded. It was awful. They were nearly wiped out; chaps with arms and
faces smashed. It was terrible. The trenches were full of water, and
the men were blue with cold, and as our chaps went to carry out the
dead and wounded the Germans fired on them. We made them as comfortable
as we could, making them fags and giving them tea, and we took their
places in the trenches that night."
How these acts should rebuke us when in time of peace we refuse to do
small deeds of kindness!
When allies do not pull well together there is trouble, but happily
this is not the case in the present war. There is a fine fraternity
between the French and the British soldier. The French calls out,
"Bravo, Tommie!" and his British brother replies, "Right, O!" It is not
a long conversation and there is no dangerous discussion, but it shows
good will.
Once at least French and British soldiers were play-fellows. Seven of
our men having lost their regiment joined a French one for the time
being. They taught the French how to play football, and often played
with them when under fire.
One of the Royal Lancasters said in a letter that the sign manual of
friendship between the French and the British soldier is a cross on the
throat indicating their wish to the Kaiser. "The French Tommies copy us
a lot, and they like, when they have time, to stroll into our lines for
a chat or a game. They are fond of the jam served to us and exchange
things for it."
On one occasion the appreciation of the French soldiers was even
embarrassing. They had seen the Irish Guards put to flight great
numbers of the "Kaiser's crush," and when the regiment marched back
the French stood up in their trenches and roared applause. The Irish
Guards, who only became a regiment after the Boer war, felt shy about
this French fuss. They did not like the idea that it was their first
time in action, and that their battle honour was brand new.