CAMPAIGNING WITH THE HIGHLANDERS
[The Highland regiments have made a great impression upon the
Germans since the war began, and the kilted troops have added to
their laurels in the field. This story of fighting with the
Highlanders is told by Private A. Veness, 2nd Battalion Seaforth
Highlanders, who was wounded and invalided home.]
I have served eight years in the Seaforth Highlanders. To begin with I
was a bandsman, but when the war broke out and I was recalled to the
colours, I became an ordinary private, and the only music that the
Germans heard me play was the rattle of my rifle. When we landed in
France and marched off to the front the girls seemed to have a special
fancy for the kilted men--at any rate they crowded up and hugged and
kissed those they could get hold of; so we went off in very good
spirits, singing and whistling popular tunes, not forgetting the
Marseillaise and “Tipperary.”
Being a strange country we saw a good many things that were new and very
strange to us till we got used to them. One amusing incident happened as
soon as we were in Belgium, and that was the sight of a big fat man
being pulled in a little cart by two dogs. It was funny, but still it
made us angry, for we rather looked upon it as cruelty to animals; so we
shouted, “Lazy brute!” “Get out and give the dogs a ride!” and so on,
and I daresay the man was greatly surprised, though he didn’t know what
we were saying. In a little while we understood that dogs are
extensively used for haulage purposes in Belgium and we ceased to take
any special notice of them.
It was not long after landing before we were told to be ready for the
Germans, but that proved a false alarm. We were, however, to get our
baptism of fire in a dramatic fashion, and that baptism naturally dwells
in my mind more vividly than many of the far bigger things which
happened later in the war.
A terrific thunderstorm broke, and a party of us were ordered to billet
in a barn. We climbed up into a loft and began to make ourselves
comfortable and to make some tea. We had scarcely got the welcome tea to
our lips when the hurried order came to clear out of the building, and
into the thunderstorm we dashed. Then the German shells began to fly and
burst, and in a few minutes the barn was struck and shattered, so that
we had a very narrow escape.
It was at this stage that we had our first man killed. He was a chum of
mine, a bandsman, named Dougal McKinnon. While we were having our tea
Dougal was under cover in the trenches, in front of the barn, with his
company. They were under shell fire, and he was killed by bursting
shrapnel. He was buried close to the spot where he fell, and being the
first of our men to be killed in action we felt it very deeply. Many
times after that, when our chums were killed, we had to leave them,
because we had no time to bury them.
We got on the move, and when night came it was awful to see the whole
countryside lit up with the flames of burning buildings--farms and
houses and other places which had been set on fire by the Germans.
There was a farm which was blazing furiously and I shall never forget
it, for the good reason that in marching we managed to circle it three
times before we could get properly on the march and go ahead.
We pushed on to Cambrai, where the cannonading was truly terrible. My
company was in support of another company in advance. We lay behind a
bank, sheltering, for a few hours. At the back of us was a British
howitzer battery, in a bit of a wood, so that we were between two awful
fires. It was indescribable--the deafening din, which never ceased or
lessened while the duel raged, the excitement, the danger, and the
nerve-strain; yet there was something fascinating in watching the firing
and wondering what was going to happen.
It is wonderful to think of the working of the human mind at such a
time, and strange to recall the odd things one does. In our own case, as
we had to go on sheltering and watching, we amused ourselves by counting
the number of shells that dropped within a certain area which was well
under our observation. The area was, roughly speaking, about 200 yards
square, and in three-quarters of an hour no fewer than seventy-six
shells exploded over that particular spot. They were shrapnel and high
explosive and never struck the ground--they burst in the air, and at one
time I counted six shells bursting in the air together. That gives you
some idea of the tremendous nature of the German shell fire. Luckily a
great number of the shells did not explode at all, or few if any of us
could have got away.
It is impossible to praise too highly the British artillery’s work. To
my own personal knowledge there was one battery that day--I don’t know
which it was--which was under fire for at least seven hours continuously
without shifting; and during the whole of that time they were replying
to the German guns.
After that shattering experience we camped in a cornfield at night, and
were settling down to sleep when were we ordered to move again. For
hours, worn and weary though we were, we were on the march, and thankful
we were when we halted in a village and got a box of biscuits from the
French as a midday snack. We had been forced to part with most of our
equipment and many of the greatcoats were thrown away; but I felt that I
should want mine and I stuck to it--and I am wearing it now. It has had
plenty of rough usage--and here are the holes made by a piece of flying
shrapnel.
I am proud to say that the general in command of our division
congratulated the regiment on its splendid marching, and I think we did
a fine thing, for in about twelve hours we covered about thirty-two
miles--actual marching, with just a halt here and there. The Germans had
done their best to trap us, but they had not succeeded, and we escaped,
to turn the tables on them with a vengeance.
That night I had to report sick--there was something wrong with my
ankles. I was unable to march, so I got a lift on a limber-waggon of the
88th Battery of the Royal Field Artillery. During the ride, which lasted
all night, I went through some of the finest country I ever saw. It was
particularly beautiful because of the time of the year, late autumn, and
the clear light of the full moon. This moonlight ride on a limber will
be always associated in my memory with the grandest spectacle of its
sort I saw during the war.
The battery was travelling along a switchback road, and I was wrapped up
in the beautiful and peaceful scenery--it was hard to believe that this
calm landscape was the scene of war and that the splendid British
gunners I was with had been dealing death and destruction amongst the
Germans so lately.
Not far away was a river, winding like a silver thread over the face of
the country, and suddenly, from the river, there rose an immense mass of
flame and smoke, followed quickly by a thunderous rumbling roar.
I knew at once that a bridge had been blown up. I cannot tell you who
destroyed it--Germans or French; all I know is that I saw the sight and
it was the most remarkable of its kind that I witnessed--and I saw four
splendid bridges destroyed in this manner.
At one time we had crossed a fine bridge and as soon as we had done so a
hole was dug and a mine was laid in the centre. Then our cyclist section
was sent out to report what was going to happen and the bridge was blown
up. In this case we were the last to cross before the explosion
occurred.
At an early stage of the operations I was lucky enough to see a very
fine fight in the air, a duel between a French airman and a German
airman. I was able to follow the duel for miles. The men in the
aeroplanes were firing revolvers at each other and we could hear the
crack of the shots, though we could not see any definite results,
because the duel got too far away. This was the first fight in the air
that I saw, and I watched it with extraordinary interest, especially as
we all keenly hoped that the German would be brought down, because he
had been flying over our lines and quickly directed shell fire on us
owing to his signals. For fully twenty minutes I watched this air fight.
It was wonderful to see the swiftness with which the machines dived and
dodged. The Frenchman circled over the German in the most skilful and
daring manner and time after time threatened his existence.
Another remarkable incident I witnessed at this time was the escape of a
German cavalryman. He was an Uhlan, a scout, I take it, and quite alone.
We were on the march and had been told that the German cavalry were in
large numbers near us, and so that we should be ready for them we took
up a position, with some Irish infantry to the left of us.
We were lying in position on a hill, and in front of us was three or
four miles of good flat country, so that we should have had a fine view
of cavalry in force. We watched and waited, but the threatened cavalry
did not come--all we saw was this solitary Uhlan, a mere speck on the
wide plain.
As soon as the Uhlan was seen the rifles rattled and it was expected
that he would be potted; but he seemed to bear a charmed life. The Irish
battalion gave him a particularly heavy fire--the Seaforths were too far
off to reach him with the rifle; but the Uhlan galloped gaily on, and it
was quite amusing to watch him. No doubt he thoroughly enjoyed
himself--at any rate he galloped unscathed across two or three miles of
open country, and got away.
It was not until we were within about eighteen miles of Paris that the
retirement ended and we began the offensive. We had had a very hard
time, and were to have a few days’ rest, but we never got it. Yet in
spite of the hardships we had some very pleasant times, because of the
beauty of the country and the season.
Joyful indeed was the day when we began to drive the Germans back, and
it was the more joyful because the advance was almost as swift as our
retirement had been.
On that wonderful advance we saw some horrible things--I will not dwell
on German barbarities, though there were many proofs of them--including
great numbers of horses which had been killed or wounded and left just
where they had fallen. No attempt had been made to dispose of the
decaying carcases and many a poor brute had died a lingering death.
I was greatly struck by the Germans’ cruelty to their horses, in leaving
them like this; but that was one proof of the hurriedness of the enemy’s
retreat--the Germans who had got so near Paris and were then flung right
away back from the city. I need hardly say that whenever a sign of
movement was noticed in a horse a man was sent to put the poor thing out
of its misery.
There was still plenty of hardship to put up with, but that did not
matter so much when we were driving back the Germans.
I remember very well one day and night of uncommon wretchedness. It was
raining heavily and continuously, and in the deluge I and three more men
were sent on outpost--to observe and keep our eyes open, and so that we
could do that to the best advantage we took up a position on the top of
a hayrick. A perfect hurricane was blowing, and the almost solid rain
was fairly driven into us; but we stuck it through, and hung on to the
top of the haystack till it was dark, then we thankfully got down and
went into an open shed for shelter--a building that was just a
protection for wheat-stacks.
I had had my turn of picketing and was lying down to get a snatch of
sleep when I was ordered to go up a road about a mile and a half away,
to find out whether our relief had come. So out into the darkness and
the wind and rain I staggered and fought my way through what was the
worst night for weather that I ever saw. On and on I and my comrades
went, looking hard for our relief, but we never saw it, and we waited
there till next morning, when we rejoined our brigade.
Those were times when there was little rest for the Seaforths, or
anybody else.
The aeroplanes gave us little chance of rest, and at times they had an
uncanny knack of finding us.
One day, after a long, hard march, we put into a wood for shelter. A
French supply column was already in the wood and doubtless the Germans
knew of or suspected this; at any rate a German aeroplane came over us,
with the result that in a few minutes we were shelled out. We rested in
another part of the wood till it was dark, then we were taken on to
billets, but we had to make another move, because we were shelled out
again. That was the sort of thing which came along as part of the day’s
work; and as part of the day’s work we took it cheerfully.
When we got the Germans on the move we took prisoners from time to
time. I was on guard over a few prisoners, part of a crowd, when one of
them came up to me and to my amazement I recognised him as a German who
had worked in Soho Square and used often to go to the same place as
myself for dinner--a little shop in Hanway Street, at the Oxford Street
end of Tottenham Court Road. The prisoner recognised me at once and I
recognised him. To show how ignorant the Germans were of the enemy they
were fighting, I may tell you that this man said to me, “If we had known
we were fighting the English, I would never have left London!”
Was it not strange that the two of us, who had so often met as friends
for dinner in the little foreign shop, should meet again as enemies on
the banks of the Marne?
I am now coming to a sorrowful personal incident--the loss of my chum,
Lance-Corporal Lamont. We had been together from the beginning of the
war and had shared everything there was, even to the waterproof sheet.
He would carry the sheet one day and I would carry it the next, and
whenever such a thing had to be done as fetching drinking-water, often a
very dangerous task, we would share that too.
Throughout one awful night of ceaseless rain, which soaked us to the
skin, the two of us were in the trenches--we had dug ourselves in, with
just ordinary head cover. We lay there till next morning, when an
officer came along my platoon and asked if we had any drinking-water.
We told him that we had not.
The officer said, “If you care to risk it, one of you can go and fetch
some water.”
We decided to take the risk, which was great, because to get the water
meant getting to a farmhouse just behind us, under a heavy fire.
My chum volunteered to go, and, taking the water-bottles, he left the
trench and started to cross the open ground between us and the
farmhouse. While he was doing this the order came for us to advance--and
I never saw him again.
It was soon my turn to be put out of action. A pretty stiff fight was
going on and the fire was so heavy that it was very dangerous to be in
the open; but it was necessary for me and a few more men to cross a bit
of open ground, and we made a start. We had not gone far when a shell
came between me and another man who was at my side. The shell struck him
fair on the arm and shattered it. He fell over on his side, and as he
did so he said, “For Heaven’s sake cut my equipment off!”
I took out my jack-knife and slit the equipment across the shoulders and
let it drop away from him.
He crawled off and I was told afterwards that while he was trying to
creep to shelter he was struck again and killed.
I crawled as best I could up to the firing line, but when I got there I
found that there was no room in the trenches for me, so I had to lie in
the open. I had not been there long before a fellow next to me asked me
what time it was. I took out my watch and told him it was about
eleven-fifteen--and the next thing I knew was that I felt as if someone
had kicked me on the top of the head.
I turned round and said, “Tommy, I’m hit!” I became unconscious for some
time, then, when I recovered, I said, “Tommy, is it safe to crawl
away?”
“No,” said Tommy, “it’s risky. It’s a bit too hot!”
“Never mind,” I answered. “If I stay here much longer I shall collapse.
I’m going to have a shot at it--here goes!”
I began to crawl away, but I must have taken the wrong direction, for I
was soon under two fires. I was approaching the mouths of two or three
of our own guns, which were in front of a farmhouse.
I soon found that this was a bit too warm for me, and so I turned and
took what I supposed was the right direction. I had had enough of
crawling, which was very slow work. I wanted to get out of it, and I
made up my mind to rise and run. That does not sound very brave, but it
was the better part of valour.
I started to run, as best I could; but I had hardly got going when a
bullet struck me, as I supposed, and I collapsed alongside some of my
own comrades.
Stretcher-bearers came up, in time, and I was carried to the field
hospital. Then a curious discovery was made, which was, that a bullet
had gone through four or five pleats of my kilt and had stuck in my leg,
high up. This is the place where it struck and stuck and here’s the
bullet, which the doctor easily pulled out with his fingers, for it had
not penetrated deeply, owing, I think, to the resistance of the pleats
of my kilt. Apart from this bullet wound I was struck by shrapnel four
times, but I managed to keep going.
I left the field hospital the next day and joined an ambulance column
which was shelled by the Germans as it went along. I escaped myself, but
one of the waggons was completely wrecked.
Having recovered from my wound to a certain extent I went back to the
regiment, but after a few days I had to be invalided home, and I have
had a long and tedious spell in hospital.
There is one more incident I would like to mention by way of closing. We
halted in a village in France where we saw some of the Turcos, one of
whom was very noticeable because he was proudly wearing the greatcoat of
a German officer which he had secured on the battlefield, after killing
the officer.
While we halted, a batch of German prisoners was brought into the
village, and they were put into a courtyard between two rows of
cottages. No sooner had this been done than an old man rushed out, and
if it had not been for the guard he would have hurled himself upon the
prisoners and done his best to thrash them.
The act was so strange that I inquired the reason for the old man’s
fury. And the answer I received was, “He remembers 1870.”
[Illustration:
[_To face p. 202._
“A BULLET STRUCK HIM IN THE BACK AND KILLED HIM” (p. 9).]