“GREENJACKETS” IN THE FIRING LINE
[The King’s Royal Rifle Corps, the famous old 60th Rifles, the
“Greenjackets,” I have had a large share in the war and have added
to their glorious distinctions. Many of the officers of this
regiment have given their lives for their country, amongst them
being Prince Maurice of Battenberg. Some details of the Prince’s
service in the war before he was killed in action are given in this
story by Rifleman Brice, of the 60th, who was wounded at the Battle
of the Aisne and invalided home.]
When we first landed in France we were welcomed and cheered by crowds of
French people who decked us with flowers and couldn’t do too much for
us, and they kept that kindness up all the time I was over there until I
was sent home with a lot more wounded. Throwing flowers at us was a
great deal pleasanter than the shells and bullets which were shot at us
a few days later, when we were in the thick of trench-digging and
fighting. It’s astonishing how soon you settle down to a state of things
that you’ve never been used to and how extraordinarily war alters life
and people.
The Greenjackets are very proud of themselves, especially in time of
peace, and have many little ways of their own; but a war like this makes
all soldiers chums and equals and even the officers are practically just
like the men. Our own colonel did his share in the trench-digging, and a
royal officer like Prince Maurice of Battenberg, who is now resting in
a soldier’s grave, was living the same life as the rest of us. Many an
act of kindness did the Prince show to his riflemen, and many a fierce
fight he shared in before he was killed in battle; many a word of cheer
did he utter to men who were almost exhausted and nearly dying of
thirst, and I have seen him go and buy fresh bread, when it could be
got, and give it to us as a treat--and a glorious treat it was!
One of the first things we had to do after the retirement from Mons was
to bury German dead, and you will get some idea of the awful losses they
suffered, even at the beginning of the war, when I tell you that in one
place alone we were about eight hours in doing this unpleasant task.
We got used to digging ourselves in and being shelled out, and to
guarding towns and villages while the panic-stricken inhabitants escaped
to safety. It was a pitiful sight to see people turned out of their
houses, taking their belongings, when they could, in carts,
perambulators, wheelbarrows and every available conveyance. They always
kept as close to us as they could keep, and our fellows used to collect
money amongst themselves for the poor souls and give them all the food
they could spare--and they were very grateful if we gave them only a
biscuit.
It was terrible work on our way to the Aisne; but the hardships were
lightened for us in many little ways that counted a lot. Some of our
officers would carry two rifles, when men became too weary to carry
their own; the colonel would jump off his horse and give an exhausted
man a lift in the saddle, and he would take apples from his pockets and
pass them along the ranks to the men. These acts of kindness helped us
all enormously. And we were helped on the way by smoking--what a joy it
was to get a fag, especially when cigarettes ran so short that one would
go round a dozen times, passed from man to man, and a chap was sorely
tempted to take a pull that was almost enough to fill him with smoke.
When we hadn’t a scrap of tobacco of any sort we would roll a fag of
dried tea-leaves which had been used for making tea--and that was better
than nothing.
It was fighting all the way to the Aisne, heavy rearguard actions most
of the time, though in a lesser war many of these affairs would have
been reckoned proper battles. One night, at about ten o’clock, after a
hard march, we had reached a town, and had thankfully gone into our
billets--houses, barns, any sort of place that came handy, and we were
expecting a peaceful time; but we were no sooner settling down than we
got the alarm to dress and fall in. Getting dressed was the work of
seconds only, because undressing was merely a case of putting the pack
and equipment and rifle down and resting on the flags or earth, or, if
we were lucky, hay or straw; and so, when the alarm was given, we very
soon fell in, and with fixed bayonets we rushed for a bridge across the
river that we had been ordered to take.
At the point of the bayonet the bridge was carried with a splendid rush,
then we had to hold it while our transport and ammunition column got out
of the town, and there we were till seven o’clock next morning. The main
body of the troops retired and left us as a rearguard; but they had not
gone from the town more than ten minutes when we saw the Germans coming
towards the bridge in swarms. There was no help for it--we had to get
away from the bridge which we had held throughout the night.
We began to retire in good order, fighting desperately, and our men
falling killed and wounded. Yard by yard we fell back from the bridge,
firing as furiously as we could at the German masses, and for half a
mile we kept up an unequal rearguard struggle. It seemed that we should
be hopelessly outnumbered and that there was little hope; then we saw
two divisions of the French advancing, and knew that we should pull
through. The French came on and gave us help, and, covering our
retirement, enabled us to get away from the bridge.
It was in one of the charges on a bridge which was held by the Germans,
just before we got to the Aisne, that Prince Maurice distinguished
himself. He was very daring and was always one of the first in the
fighting, no matter where or what it was. I was not actually in the
charge, being in the supports behind; but I saw the charge made, and a
grand sight it was to watch our fellows rush forward with the steel and
take the bridge. At another time the Prince was in action with a German
rearguard and narrowly escaped death. I was in this affair, and saw a
German shell burst about a yard away. It plugged into the ground and
made a fine commotion and scattered earth and fragments around us; but a
chum and myself laughed as we dodged it, and that was the way we got
into of taking these explosions when we became used to the war. You
could not help laughing, even if you were a bit nervous. During this
fight Prince Maurice was shot through the cap, so that he had a shave
for his life, but he made light of his escape, and was very proud of the
hole in the cap, which he showed to us when he talked with us, as he
often did, before he fell.
There were so many incidents of coolness and disregard of wounds that it
is not easy to recollect them all; but I call to mind that our adjutant,
Lieutenant Woods, was shot in a little affair with the Germans. A
sergeant had taken a maxim gun to put in position at a certain spot; but
he had gone the wrong way and the adjutant went after him to put things
right. He was too late, however, for the sergeant was spotted by the
Germans and was killed. The adjutant himself was struck, but managed to
get away, and he came back laughing and saying, “Oh! damn those Germans!
They’ve shot me in the leg!” But in spite of the wound he would not lie
up or let anybody do anything for him--he bound up the wound himself and
carried on.
I saw another case, later, which illustrates the coolness of the British
officer and his determination not to leave the fight till he is forced
to do so. I was by that time wounded and in a temporary hospital, and
the artillery were keeping up one of the endless duels. The officer had
been struck, and he came into the hospital, and I saw that his hand had
been partially blown off; but instead of caving in, as he might well
have done, he had the hand bound up and put it in a sling, then he went
back to his battery just outside the windows and kept on pounding away
at the Germans.
We had plenty of excitement with the German aeroplanes, and often potted
at them, but I did not see any of the machines brought down. I remember
one day when an aeroplane was trying to locate our position--we were
retiring through a French village--and a brigade started firing at it.
Just when the aeroplane appeared, the little boys and girls of the
village were giving us delicious plums, which they were getting from the
trees. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and the youngsters liked
it too, when the aeroplane swooped along and we instantly started firing
at it. So many rifles going made a tremendous rattle, and the poor
little boys and girls were terrified and ran off screaming, and
scattered in all directions. We shouted to them and tried to bring them
back, but they didn’t come, and disappeared in all sorts of
hiding-places. The aeroplane got away, I believe, but at any rate it did
no mischief at that particular spot. The French civilian folk got used
to running off and hiding. In another village we passed through we came
to a large house and found that three young ladies and their parents had
been forced into the cellar and locked there by the Germans. When we
entered the house, the prisoners were starving, and were thankful for
anything that we gave them; but they would not take any money from us.
The young ladies spoke English quite nicely.
We got quite used to aeroplanes--our own, the Germans, and the French,
and saw several thrilling fights in the air. Once we saw a French
aeroplane furiously fired on by the Germans--a regular cannonade it was;
but the shells and bullets never got at it, and the aeroplane escaped.
It was wonderful to see the way the machine shot down, as if nothing
could prevent it from smashing on the ground, then to watch it suddenly
turn upward and soar away as safely and swiftly as a bird. The airman’s
idea seemed to be to dodge the fire, and he darted about in such a
bewildering fashion that no gunner or rifleman could hope to do
anything with him. We were all greatly excited by this thrilling
performance in the air, and glad when we knew that the plucky Frenchman
had been swift enough to dodge the shells and bullets.
We had had some very trying work to do, and now we were going to get our
reward for it. Some of the hardest of the work was that about which
people hear nothing, and perhaps never even think--on sentry at night,
for instance, about the most nerve-racking job you can imagine. We were
always double sentry, and stood for two hours about five yards from each
other, like statues, never moving. I always felt funky at this sort of
work at the start--you can imagine such a lot in the dark and the strain
is so heavy. At the slightest sound the rifle would be presented, and
the word “Halt!” ring out--just that word and nothing more, and if there
wasn’t an instant satisfactory reply it was a bad look-out for the other
party. The Germans were very cunning at getting up to some of the
British outposts and sentries, and as so many of them speak English very
well, they were dangerous customers to tackle, and this added to the
heavy strain of sentry work at night.
Now I come to the Battle of the Aisne. I had three days and nights of it
before I was bowled out.
A strange thing happened on the first day of the battle, and that was
the appearance of a little black dog. I don’t know where he came from,
or why he joined us, but he followed the battalion all the rest of the
time I was with it, and not only that, but he went into action, so he
became quite one of us.
Once, in the darkness, we walked into a German outpost. We found it
pretty hard going just about there, for the German dead were so thick
that we had to walk over them. That march in the night was a wonderful
and solemn thing. Three columns of us were going in different
directions, yet moving so quietly that you could scarcely hear a sound.
All around us, in that Valley of the Aisne, were burning buildings and
haystacks, making a terrible illumination, and showing too well what war
means when it is carried on by a nation like the Germans, for this
burning and destroying was their doing.
Silently, without any talking, we went on, and then we fell into the
outpost. I heard the stillness of the night broken by the sharp sound of
voices, a sound which was instantly followed by shots, and the furious
barking of our little dog, which up to that point had been perfectly
quiet. The shots were fired by Captain Woollen, who killed two of the
Germans, and one of our men shot a third. We left them where they fell
and retired as quickly as we could; but we had done what we started out
to do, and that was to find the position of the enemy.
While advancing again we caught a column of Germans. Our brigade-major
saw them and came tearing back and told us that they were about fourteen
hundred yards to the left of us. Within ten minutes we had a firing line
made and our artillery was in position as well. It was a grand sight to
see our fellows running into the firing line smoking cigarettes, as cool
as if they were doing a bit of skirmishing on training.
We gave the Germans about three hours’ hot firing, then a company went
round to take the prisoners. The white flag had been shown, but we had
not been allowed to take any notice of that until we were sure of our
men, because the Germans had so often made a wrong use of the signal of
surrender. When the company got round to the Germans it was found that
they had already thrown down their rifles. Our brigade took about 500
prisoners, and the rest we handed over to the 1st Division. The Germans
had about a mile and a half of convoy, which got away; but the French
captured it in the evening, and so made a very nice little complete
victory of the affair.
At that time, early in the war, the Germans thought they were going to
have it all their own way, and they considered that any trick, white
flag or otherwise, was good enough. So certain were they about victory
that in one village we passed through we saw written on a wall, in
English, evidently by a German, “We will do the tango in Paris on the
13th.” We laughed a good deal when we read that boast, and well we
might, for it was on the 13th that we saw the writing on the wall, and
the Germans by that time were getting driven a long way back from the
French capital.
On the Monday morning we went out as flank guard on the Aisne, and were
going along behind some hills when our captain spotted swarms of Germans
coming up over a ridge about twelve hundred yards away. He ordered two
platoons to go out and line the ridge, and for the ridge we went. When
we reached it, our captain told us that not a man was to show his head
over the ridge until he gave the word to fire.
The Germans came on, getting nearer and nearer, in dense masses, and it
was the hardest thing in the world not to let fly at them. They advanced
till they were about seven hundred yards away, then we showed them what
British rifles could do. We simply went for them, and our rifles got so
hot that we could scarcely hold them. Despite that awful hail of
bullets the Germans came on, and hurled themselves against us till they
were not more than a hundred yards away; then we wanted to charge them,
and begged to be let loose with the bayonet, but our captain told us
that there were not enough of us to do it. So we retired to our own
battalion, the whole of which had the joy of going for them. But the
Germans didn’t wait for us. They don’t like the British steel, and when
we had pushed them right back, without actually getting at them, they
cleared off.
This was the kind of thing that went on in the Valley of the Aisne. It
was work in the open and work in the trenches, on top of the incessant
fighting we had had. On the third day, at night, we had just come out of
the trenches, having been relieved by another company. We were in good
spirits, for we had been sent to a barn, where we were to spend the
night. That was a splendid bit of luck, because it meant that we were to
get a nice rest and have a good time. The barn had hay in it, and we
simply packed the place. It was on a farm, and during the day we had
seen the farmer and his wife. There was a village near, with a church
and houses, and it had proved a fine target for the Germans, who
constantly shelled the place. We had got quite into the way of watching
the shells burst about fifty yards in front of us, and it really was a
grand sight to sit and gaze at them. We sometimes did this when we were
so heavily bombarded that we could do nothing with the rifle or bayonet.
Little did we know what was in store for us at the barn from shells.
The night passed and the morning came. We breakfasted and made ready to
march; but were
[Illustration:
[_To face p. 38._
“THE GERMANS CAME ON AND HURLED THEMSELVES AGAINST US.”]
ordered to hold back a bit, and so we put aside our packs and rifles and
had a sing-song to pass the time. It was one of the most surprising
concerts ever held, I daresay, because all the time about three German
batteries were shelling us, and occasionally a shell burst very near us
and made an awful commotion. We were still packed in the barn, quite
cheerful, when the sergeant who was in charge of us, and was acting as
sergeant-major, told us to fall in.
He had hardly spoken the words when the very building seemed to
collapse, the wall was blown in, the roof fell, timbers crashed down and
the barn was filled with a horrible smoke and dust, and there were
deafening and awful cries--screams and groans where a few moments
earlier there had been the sound of merriment, for a German shell had
crashed through the wall and exploded in the very thick of us.
I was lying down in the barn, with my pack on, when this thing happened.
I sprang to my feet and dashed to the door and rushed into the open air,
but as soon as I had left the building a second shell came and burst and
I was knocked down. I tried to rise, but my leg was numb, and so I had
to wait till the stretcher-bearers came and took me to a big white house
about three hundred yards away, which had been turned into a hospital,
and there I was put with the rest of the wounded. For about ten minutes
I had to wait outside, and there I was struck by a piece of spent shell,
but not much hurt. When we were carried off in the stretchers we were
kept near the bank of the road, to avoid as much as possible the German
fire.
At the hospital it was found that I had been wounded in the leg; but I
did not care so much about myself, I wanted to know what had happened
in the barn. I soon learned the dreadful truth--the shells had killed
eleven of the men and wounded thirty-two, some of whom died afterwards.
Prince Maurice was close at hand when this happened, and at night he
attended the burial of the poor fellows near the barn. About an hour
after the men were killed he came into the house to see us. “How are you
getting on?” he asked me. “I am so sorry such a dreadful thing has
happened.” And he looked it, too.
I was in the hospital three days before being sent home. All that time
there were villagers in the cellars of the hospital, terrified people
who were hiding from the German fire, and were fed from our transport.
A lot was crowded into that retirement from Mons and the advance to the
Aisne. We had kept our spirits up and had not been downhearted, and when
the great day came which brought the order to advance and fight the
enemy, we positively shouted and sang. And this was not just swank; it
was a real expression of our feelings, for we wanted to do our bit for
the Empire.