No embroidery is required to elaborate the following episode: it is a
bit of grim reality. The Prussian Guard had just delivered an attack
around Ypres. For days they had been paving the road to Calais with
their own corpses. At that time, you will remember, we had no high
explosive to spare to beat off these assaults; only shrapnel, and none
too much of that. In an advanced trench before the British lines were
the Northumberland Fusiliers, firing with another regiment. Commanding
a fraction of the latter regiment was a young lieutenant, whose
greatest chum happened to be directing the fire of our batteries. In
those days each shot had to tell, and it was resolved that when the
enemy rallied again for another attack, fire was to be held until the
Germans were immediately in front of our trenches. Among the "Fighting
Fifth," as the Northumberland Fusiliers are affectionately called, was
Corporal R. J. Glasgow, of the 2nd Battalion. Many of his comrades
had fallen that morning, and as he crouched in the ill-sheltered
trench, an old "pal," who as a boy had worked with him on the Elswick
Shipbuilding Yard on the Tyne, talked with him of old times. He offered
the corporal a cigarette, and, as Glasgow felt through his pockets for
a match, said:--
"I want to enjoy this smoke. It'll be our last together."
"You think the Germans are getting through this time?" asked the other.
"No, I don't think they'll get through. But, anyhow, I've a kind of
presentiment that this is our last smoke together."
During the day they lay together, smoking and yarning. Hard by the
artillery major was preparing busily for the attack everyone knew was
to be delivered that evening. At length the day waned, the red disc of
the sun silhouetted in sharp relief against the battered tower of Ypres
Cathedral. Night fell, and at last the German guns belched a furious
cannonade against the poor earthworks held by our fellows. When they
had done their work the Prussian Guard poured out of their holes and
mounds and stormed towards the British.
Until they were almost upon our lines the British guns were silent.
Then, when the enemy were practically at hand-grips with those
holding the advanced trenches, a terrible fusillade opened upon the
Prussians. By some unfortunate mistake, however, the range had not
been accurately calculated; our shrapnel was bursting too far behind
the attacking enemy. There was but little time to think; immediate
action was imperative. Desperate cases are cured only by desperate
remedies. Either that little handful of men in the front trench must be
sacrificed, or the enemy would burst through the British lines.
The major directing the artillery fire was in a terrible quandary, for
among the men who would be sacrificed was his dear friend.
Yet he knew his duty as a soldier, and he did not hesitate. He
directed the range of the batteries to be shortened until the shells
were bursting over the trench, and his chum fell, pierced with
bullets. That same evening the major himself was found--dead by his
own hand, a revolver by his side. Corporal Glasgow was carried to a
dressing-station with sixteen bullets from British shrapnel in his
leg, and his friend of the cigarette episode had been shot through the
brain. That terrible night furnished a long list of casualties for the
British, but Ypres had been saved, and the road to Calais was still
guarded by the thin khaki line.