THE BATTLE OF MONS
We knew nothing of what was going on. There was a rumour that Namur had
fallen, and I heard certain officers say we had advanced dangerously
far. The cavalry was on our left and the Third Division on our right.
Beyond the Third Division we had heard of the First Corps, but nothing
of the French. We were left, to the best of our knowledge, a tenuous
bulwark against the German hosts.
The 14th Brigade had advanced by the Andregnies road to Elouges and the
Canal. The 13th was our right brigade, and the 15th, at first in
reserve, extended our line on the second day to Frameries. The Cyclists
were reconnoitring north of the Canal.
The roads round Dour were of the very worst _pavé_, and, if this were
not enough, the few maps we had between us were useless. The villages of
Waasmes, Paturages, and Frameries were in the midst of such a network
of roads that the map could not possibly be clear. If the country had
been flat, we might at least have found our way by landmarks. It was
not. The roads wandered round great slag-heaps, lost themselves in
little valleys, ran into pits and groups of buildings. Each one tried to
be exactly like all its fellows. Without a map to get from Elouges to
Frameries was like asking an American to make his way from Richmond Park
to Denmark Hill.
About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find
General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over
nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him,
and was told by him to tell the General that the position was
unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on
my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a
shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and
myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle,
until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising
that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot,
I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.
The second time I went out to General Gleichen I found him a little
farther back from his former position. This time he was on the railway.
While I was waiting for a reply we had an excellent view of German guns
endeavouring to bring down one of our aeroplanes. So little did we know
of aeroplanes then, that the General was persuaded by his brigade-major
to step back into shelter from the falling bits, and we all stared
anxiously skywards, expecting every moment that our devoted aviator
would be hit.
That evening Huggie and I rode back to Bavai and beyond in search of an
errant ammunition column. Eventually we found it and brought news of it
back to H.Q. I shall never forget the captain reading my despatch by the
light of my lamp, the waggons guarded by Dorsets with fixed bayonets
appearing to disappear shadowy in the darkness. We showed the captain a
short-cut that avoided Bavai, then left him. His horses were tired, but
he was forced to push them on another ten miles to Dour. We got back at
10, and found Nadine weeping. We questioned her, but she would not tell
us why.
There was a great battle very early the next morning, a running-about
and set, anxious faces. We were all sent off in rapid succession. I was
up early and managed to get a wash at the station-master's house, his
wife providing me with coffee, which, much to my discomfiture, she
liberally dosed with rum. At 6.30 Johnson started on a message to the
15th Brigade. We never saw him again. At 9.15 three despatch riders who
had gone to the 15th, George, Johnson, and Grimers, had not returned. I
was sent. Two miles out I met George with Grimers' despatches. Neither
of them had been able to find the 15th. I took the despatches and sent
George back to report. I went down a road, which I calculated ought to
bring me somewhere on the left of the 15th, who were supposed to be
somewhere between Paturages and Frameries. There were two villages on
hills, one on each side. I struck into the north end of the village on
my left; there was no road to the one on my right.[6] I came across a
lot of disheartened stragglers retreating up the hill. I went a little
farther and saw our own firing line a quarter of a mile ahead. There was
a bit of shrapnel flying about, but not much. I struck back up the hill
and came upon a crowd of fugitive infantry men, all belonging to the
13th Brigade. At last I found General Cuthbert, the Brigadier of the
13th, sitting calmly on his horse watching the men pass. I asked him
where the 15th was. He did not know, but told me significantly that our
rallying-point was Athis.
I rode a little farther, and came upon his signal officer. He stopped me
and gave me a verbal message to the General, telling me that the 15th
appeared to be cut off. As I had a verbal message to take back there was
no need for me to go farther with my despatches, which, as it appeared
later, was just as well. I sprinted back to Dour, picking my way through
a straggling column of men sullenly retreating. At the station I found
everybody packing up. The General received my message without a word,
except one of thanks.
The right flank of the 13th has been badly turned.
Most of our officers have been killed.
Some companies of the K.O.S.B. are endeavouring to cover
our retreat.
We viciously smashed all the telegraph instruments in the office and cut
all the wires. It took me some time to pack up my kit and tie it on my
carrier. When I had finished, everybody had gone. I could hear their
horses clattering up the street. Across the way Nadine stood weeping. A
few women with glazed, resigned eyes, stood listlessly round her.
Behind me, I heard the first shell crash dully into the far end of the
town. It seemed to me I could not just go off. So I went across to
Nadine and muttered "Nous reviendrons, Mademoiselle." But she would not
look at me, so I jumped on my bicycle, and with a last glance round at
the wrecked, deserted station, I rode off, shouting to encourage more
myself than the others, "Ça va bien."
I caught up the General, and passed him to ride on ahead of the Signal
Company. Never before had I so wished my engine to turn more slowly. It
seemed a shame that we motor-cyclists should head the retreat of our
little column. I could not understand how the men could laugh and joke.
It was blasphemous. They ought to be cursing with angry faces,--at the
least, to be grave and sorrowful.
I was told that Divisional Headquarters would be established at
Villers-Pol, a little country village about ten miles west of Bavai and
eight miles south-east of Valenciennes. I rode to St Waast, a few miles
out of Bavai, and, finding there a cavalry colonel (of the 2nd Life
Guards, I think), gave him all the news. I hurried on to Jenlain,
thinking I might be of some use to the troops on our right flank, but
Jenlain was peaceful and empty. So I cut across low rolling downs to
Villers-Pol. There was nobody there when I arrived. The sun was shining
very brightly. Old women were sleeping at the doors; children were
playing lazily on the road. Soon one or two motor-cyclists dribbled in,
and about an hour later a section of the Signal Company arrived after a
risky dash along country lanes. They outspanned, and we, as always, made
for the inn.
There was a mother in the big room. She was a handsome little woman of
about twenty-four. Her husband was at the war. She asked me why we had
come to Villers-Pol. I said we were retreating a little--pour attaquer
le mieux--un mouvement stratégique. She wept bitterly and loudly, "Ah,
my baby, what will they do to us? They will kill you, and they will
ill-treat me so that never again shall I be able to look my husband in
the eyes--his brave eyes; but now perhaps they are closed in death!"
There was an older, harsh-featured woman who rated the mother for her
silliness, and, while we ate our omelette, the room was filled with the
clamour of them until a dog outside began to howl. Then the mother went
and sat down in a chair by the fire and stopped crying, but every now
and then moaned and clasped her baby strongly to her breast, murmuring,
"My poor baby, my poor baby, what shall we do?"
We lounged about the place until a cavalry brigade came through. The
General commandeered me to find his transport. This I did, and on the
way back waited for the brigade to pass. Then for the first time I saw
that many riderless horses were being led, that some of the horses and
many of the men were wounded, and that one regiment of lancers was
pathetically small. It was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, that had charged the
enemy's guns, to find them protected by barbed wire.
Sick at heart I rode back into Villers-Pol, and found the Signal Company
hastily harnessing up. Headquarters had been compelled to go farther
back still--to St Waast, and there was nobody, so far as we knew,
between us and the Germans. The order caught George with his gear down.
We made a marvellously rapid repair, then went off at the trot. A mile
out, and I was sent back to pick up our quartermaster and three others
who were supposed to have been left behind. It was now quite dark. In
the village I could not find our men, but discovered a field ambulance
that did not know what to do. Their horses were dead tired, but I
advised them strongly to get on. They took my advice, and I heard at
Serches that they left Villers-Pol as the Germans[7] entered it. They
were pursued, but somehow got away in the darkness.
I went on, and at some cross-roads in a black forest came across a
regiment of hussars. I told them where their B.H.Q. was, and their
Colonel muttered resignedly,
"It's a long way, but we shall never get our wounded horses there
to-morrow." I put two more companies right, then came across a little
body of men who were vainly trying to get a horse attached to a S.A.A.
limber out of the ditch. It was a pitch-black night, and they were
bravely endeavouring to do it without catching a glimpse of the horse. I
gave them the benefit of my lamp until they had got the brute out. Two
more bodies of stragglers I directed, and then pushed on rapidly to St
Waast, where I found all the other motor-cyclists safe except Johnson.
Two had come on carts, having been compelled to abandon their
motor-cycles.
George had been attached to the 14th. He had gone with them to the
canal, and had been left there with the Cornwalls when the 14th had
retired to its second position. At last nobody remained with him except
a section. They were together in a hut, and outside he could hear the
bullets singing. He noticed some queer-looking explosives in a corner,
and asked what they were for. He was told they were to blow up the
bridge over the canal, so decided it was time for him to quit, and did
so with some rapidity under a considerable rifle fire. Then he was sent
up to the Manchesters, who were holding a ready-made trench across the
main road. As he rode up he tells me men shouted at him, "Don't go that
way, it's dangerous," until he grew quite frightened; but he managed to
get to the trench all right, slipped in, and was shown how to crawl
along until he reached the colonel.
N'Soon and Sadders were with the 13th. On the Sunday night they had to
march to a new position more towards their right. The Signal Section
went astray and remained silently on a byroad while their officer
reconnoitred. On the main road between them and their lines were some
lights rapidly moving--Germans in armoured motor-cars. They successfully
rejoined, but in the morning there was something of a collision, and
Sadders' bicycle was finished. He got hold of a push-bike alongside the
waggons for some distance, finishing up on a limber.
Spuggy was sent up to the trenches in the morning. He was under heavy
shell fire when his engine seized up. His brigade was retreating, and he
was in the rear of it, so, leaving his bicycle, he took to his heels,
and with the Germans in sight ran till he caught up a waggon. He
clambered on, and so came into St Waast.
I had not been in many minutes when I was sent off to our Army H.Q. at
Bavai. It was a miserable ride. I was very tired, the road was full of
transport, and my lamp would not give more than a feeble glimmer.
I got to bed at 1 A.M. About 3.30 (on August 24) I was called and
detailed to remain with the rear-guard. First I was sent off to find the
exact position of various bodies posted on roads to stem the German
advance. At one spot I just missed a shell-trap. A few minutes after I
had left, some of the Manchesters, together with a body of the D.
Cyclists who were stationed three miles or so out of St Waast, were
attacked by a body of Jaegers, who appeared on a hill opposite.
Foolishly they disclosed their position by opening rifle fire. In a few
minutes the Jaegers went, and to our utter discomfiture a couple of
field-guns appeared and fired point-blank at 750 yards. Luckily the
range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded--those who retired
directly backwards instead of transversely out of the shells' direction.
The H.Q. of the rear-guard left St Waast about 5.30. It was cold and
chilly. What happened I do not quite know. All I remember was that at a
given order a battery would gallop off the road into action against an
enemy we could not see. So to Bavai, where I was sent off with an
important despatch for D.H.Q. I had to ride past the column, and
scarcely had I gone half a mile when my back tyre burst. There was no
time to repair it, so on I bumped, slipping all over the road. At
D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's
bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie
filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore
into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly
slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an
aeroplane. Dodging their bullets, I left the town, and eventually caught
up the H.Q. of the rear-guard.
It was now about 10.30. Until five the troops tramped on, in a scorching
sun, on roads covered with clouds of dust. And most pitiful of all,
between the rear-guard and the main body shuffled the wounded; for we
had been forced to evacuate our hospital at Bavai. Our men were mad at
retreating. The Germans had advanced on them in the closest order. Each
fellow firmly believed he had killed fifty, and was perfectly certain
we could have held our line to the crack of doom. They trudged and
trudged. The women, who had cheerily given us everything a few days
before, now with anxious faces timorously offered us water and fruit.
Great ox-waggons full of refugees, all in their best clothes, came in
from side-roads. None of them were allowed on the roads we were
retreating along, so I suppose they were pushed across the German front
until they fell into the Germans' hands.
For us it was column-riding the whole day--half a mile or so, and then a
halt,--heart-breaking work.
I was riding along more or less by myself in a gap that had been left in
the column. A curé stopped me. He was a very tall and very thin young
man with a hasty, frightened manner. Behind him was a flock of
panic-stricken, chattering old women. He asked me if there was any
danger. Not that he was afraid, he said, but just to satisfy his people.
I answered that none of them need trouble to move. I was too ashamed to
say we were retreating, and I had an eye on the congestion of the roads.
I have sometimes wondered what that tall, thin curé, with the sallow
face and the frightened eyes, said about me when, not twelve hours
later, the German advance-guard triumphantly defiled before him.
Late in the afternoon we passed through Le Cateau, a bright little town,
and came to the village of Reumont, where we were billeted in a large
barn.
We were all very confident that evening. We heard that we were holding a
finely entrenched position, and the General made a speech--I did not
hear it--in which he told us that there had been a great Russian
success, and that in the battle of the morrow a victory for us would
smash the Germans once and for all. But our captain was more
pessimistic. He thought we should suffer a great disaster. Doubting, we
snuggled down in the straw, and went soundly to sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] I had no map with me. All the maps were in use. Looking afterwards
at the map which I obtained later in the day, I am unable to trace my
route with any accuracy. It is certain that the Germans temporarily
thrust in a wedge between the 13th and 15th Brigades.
[7] A small patrol of cavalry, I should imagine, if the tale I heard at
Serches be true.