Wounded soldiers arriving at Frankfort-on-Main relate that Prince
Frederick Charles of Hesse, the Emperor’s brother-in-law, while leading
his regiment during a recent battle seized a flag from the hands of the
wounded flag bearer and carried it on to victory.
“GOOD-BY, MR. FLYING MAN!”
The London _Daily Mail_ correspondent at Rouen obtained a description of
the British fighting from a wounded man belonging to the Berkshire
regiment, who said:
“We marched into Mons about 10 o’clock, and were just going to be
billeted when the order came for us to fall in again and get a move on.
We’d been marching since 4 o’clock. It had been blazing hot and still we
were wanted. We were to advance under cover of artillery fire; but in
the meantime the enemy were doing a bit of artillery practice, too, so
we threw up trenches and snuggled down in them.
“They did not keep us waiting long. The German gunners were over a ridge
two or three miles in front, and their shells soon came whistling round
us. I got what they call my baptism of fire, and at first I did not like
it. In the daytime they had aeroplanes to tell them where to drop their
shells. They were flying about all the time. One came a bit too near our
gunners. He was a long way behind us. They waited and let him come on.
He thought he was all right. Two thousand feet he was up, I dare say. We
could hear his engine.
“He may have made a lot of notes, but they weren’t any use to him or
anybody, for all of a sudden our gunners let fly at him. We could see
the thing stagger and then it dropped like a stone, all crumpled up.
‘Good-by, Mr. Flying Man!’ That was the end of him.
“In the dark they turned on searchlights. We could see them hunting
about for some one to pot at. Uncanny, that was, to see a blooming big
lane of light working round and round until it came to something. Then
we heard the shells whistle, and when it came round to us and lit us up
so that we could see each other’s faces, it made my blood run cold, just
like I used to feel when I was a nipper and woke up and saw the light
and thought it was a ghost, and we lay there wondering what would happen
next.”