_Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred!_
* * * * *
_Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred._
TENNYSON’S “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
In one of our rearguard actions an officer was saying to me, “I am not
good enough to die yet.” He had not spoken the words before he was shot
through the brain, and the man on the left had his head blown off by
a shell. You know I wasn’t severely religious, but I’m inclined to be
now: _Pte. Watts, 4th Grenadiers_.
A “Charmed Life”
I bore a charmed life. A bullet went through the elbow of my jacket,
another through my equipment, and a piece of shrapnel found a
resting-place in a tin of bully-beef which was on my back. I was picked
up eventually during the night, nearly dead from loss of blood: _A
Private of the Black Watch_.