In Hospital.
(2) At Belfast.
About 120 officers and men arrived in Belfast on August 31st, direct from the Continent. They were brought here, says the Daily Telegraph local correspondent, to be near their friends, for the men had been in Ulster for a long time before leaving for the front, being stationed in Belfast and later in Londonderry. They sailed from this city for the theatre of war on August 14th, to the number of 900. It was remarkable to note how many of them were injured in the legs and feet. All were conveyed to the hospital at the Victoria Military Barracks. The men were glad to see Belfast again, but those to whom I spoke will be bitterly disappointed if they do not get another opportunity for paying off their score against the Germans.
One soldier told me a plain straightforward story, without any embellishments. What made his tale doubly interesting was the fact that he spoke with the experience of a veteran, having gone through the South African War.
Where the Germans had the advantage, he said, was in the apparently endless number of reserves. No sooner did we dispose of one regiment than another regiment took its place. It just put me in mind of the Niagara Falls—the terrible rush threatening to carry everything before it.
No force on earth could have withstood that cataract, and the fact that our men only fell back a little was the best proof of their strength. At one stage there were, I am sure, six Germans to every one of us. Yet we held our ground, and would still have held it but for the fact that after we had dealt with the men before us another force came on, using the bodies of their dead comrades as a carpet.
The South African War was a picnic compared with this, and on the way home I now and again recoiled with horror as I thought of the awful spectacle which was witnessed before we left the front of piled-up bodies of the German dead. We lost heavily, but the German casualties must have been appalling.
You must remember that for almost twenty-four hours we bore the brunt of the attack, and the desperate fury with which the Germans fought showed that they believed if they were only once past the British forces the rest would be easy. Not only so, but I am sure we had the finest troops in the German army against us.
On the way out I heard some slighting comments passed on the German troops, and no doubt some of them are not worth much, but those thrown at us were very fine specimens indeed. I do not think they could have been beaten in that respect.