A French Aeroplane discovering the Position of German Guns.
One of the main duties of the Royal Flying Corps is to discover the position of the German batteries. An aeroplane is sent over the suspected area as a decoy, and is almost sure to draw the fire of the enemy's guns, thus giving the range to the Allies' artillery. Our picture shows French artillery moving out of a village to bombard a German position thus discovered. The drawing was prepared under the direction of an officer who was in the village and witnessed the incident. Drawn by Lionel Edwards.
A young soldier of the 24th South Wales Borderers, who was wounded near Soissons and carried into safety by a lance-corporal of his regiment, thus describes the incident:—
"My company officer was standing up with an orderly near a tree, and twelve of us were lying resting in a field under a roaring cannonade. Suddenly I saw a shell coming, and shouted to him to look out, just as it burst over and a little behind the tree. Neither of the two standing was touched, but eight of us got it. I felt as if something had come up through the ground and jolted my leg, and when I tried to get up I could only use one foot. I asked if I could be moved, and my lance-corporal took me on his back and walked straight across one hundred and fifty yards of ground on which shells and bullets were falling fast. How he got across I don't know. When we were safe on the other side he cut off my trouser leg, gave me a first dressing, and put a waterproof sheet under me; and there I lay for about fifteen hours, under the rain most of the time. If ever I find that man again I shall know how to thank him."
Here is a pathetic story of a wounded man who gave his life to save his comrades. The story is told by a Northumberland Fusilier.
"We occupied an exposed position on the left at the Aisne, and one night only escaped being wiped out by mere chance, combined with as fine a deed of heroism as I have ever heard of. There was a man of the Manchester Regiment who was lying close to the German lines, badly wounded. He happened to overhear some conversation between German soldiers, and being familiar with the language, gathered that they intended to attack the position which we held that night. In spite of his wounds he decided to set out and warn us of the danger, so he started on a weary tramp of over five miles. He was under fire from the moment he got to his feet, but he stumbled along and got out of range. Later he ran into a patrol of Uhlans; but before they saw him, he dropped to earth and shammed death. They passed without a sign, and then he resumed his weary journey. By this time the strain had told on him, and his wound began to bleed, marking his path towards our lines with thin red streaks. In the early morning, just half an hour before the time fixed for the German attack, he staggered into one of our advanced posts, and managed to tell his story to the officer in charge before collapsing in a heap. Thanks to the information he gave us, we were ready for the Germans when they came, and beat them off. But his anxiety to warn us had cost him his life. The doctors said that the strain had been too much for him; and next day he died."
The coolness of our men under fire is, well illustrated in the following story.
"Out on the Aisne," says Trooper G. Hill of the 17th Lancers, "I watched a man of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who lay in the trenches, quietly firing away at the advancing enemy as coolly as if he were in a shooting gallery at home. After each shot he turned for a pull at a cigarette lying by his side on a stone. When the enemy got so close that it was necessary to use bayonets, he simply laid his cigarette down and walked out of the trench to engage them with the steel. When the attack was beaten off, he walked back for his cigarette. 'Oh, it's smoked away, and it was my last!' was all that he said."
Probably the youngest sergeant in the world is Prudent Marius, a French boy of fourteen, scarcely four feet in height. On the outbreak of war he attached himself as cyclist scout to a certain regiment passing through Alsace-Lorraine. So useful did he prove to be that the regiment adopted him, and he acted as ammunition bearer, dispatch carrier, and generally as Jack-of-all-trades. By the time the Germans were drawing near to Paris he had been made a corporal, and had been wounded in the leg. Near Soissons, during the Battle of the Aisne, he was attached to the artillery, and while handing shells to a gunner was again wounded, this time in the face. Soon afterwards he was made a full-blown sergeant. A correspondent who saw him describes him as a curious little figure in his dark-blue coat and red trousers, with two gold stripes on his arm. In spite of his youth, he was quite indifferent to shell and rifle fire.
So many stories of treachery, bad faith, and cruelty are told of the Germans that it is good to know that all of them are not cast in the same mould. It is said that in one of the towns held by the Germans near the Aisne a certain French gentleman lay sick unto death. A German army doctor, who, of course, was not required to attend on civilians, heard of the case, and knowing that there were no French doctors in the town, offered his services to the sick man. This in itself was an act of great kindness, but the manner in which it was done raised it to the level of a deed of chivalry. The German doctor knew that the sick man hated the Germans, and that the visit of a German doctor would excite him and do him harm. So he took off his uniform, put on private clothes, and pretended to be an English doctor. I am sure that we all honour this German doctor for his kind heart and thoughtful good nature.
Now let me tell you of the glorious courage and devotion shown by Dr. Huggan of the R.A.M.C. He was a native of Jedburgh, and played three-quarter back in the England v. Scotland Rugby match at Edinburgh in March 1914. Colonel Drummond Hay, writing to a friend, says that on the 14th of September Dr. Huggan organized and led a party of volunteers who removed a number of wounded from a barn which had been set on fire by German shells. Dr. Huggan and his party rushed to the barn under a very heavy fire, and managed to save all the wounded, who were in danger of being burnt alive. For this very gallant deed he was recommended for the Victoria Cross. Two days later he was killed.
Here is an extract from a letter describing the conditions under which the Army Service Corps brought up stores to the men fighting on the Aisne:—
"The whole road from here to the river Aisne is under very heavy shell fire all day, and it is only possible to move out at dusk. Even then we often come under shell fire; the guns are laid by angles; the distance is, of course, known, and at frequent intervals during the night shells are fired on the road or at the villages on the way, or at the bridgehead, four and a half miles from here. The enemy in his retirement blew up the bridge over the river, and our engineers have built a pontoon bridge to replace it. This bridge is under the enemy's guns, which shell it with great accuracy. Last night, on starting out—a pitch-dark night and raining hard—we could see the frequent flashes of the enemy's artillery, and hear and see the bursting shells. The whole of the road is lined with dead horses, and the smell is too dreadful for words. We had to halt some little time, as a village through which we had to pass was being shelled. These high-explosive shells make a most terrifying noise, and do dreadful damage when they hit something. When the shelling stopped we moved on, and finally reached the river.
"It was impossible to get loaded wagons across a very shaky pontoon bridge in pitch darkness, with very steep banks down to it, and no side rails on it. The supplies had, therefore, to be dumped on this side. This was a matter of great difficulty in the dark and wet—a very narrow road, choked in places by dead horses, ambulances, and pontoons waiting to go forward, and a perpetual stream of wounded men being carried or helped past in the opposite direction. So black was it that I could not see my hand before my face; the only things which showed up were the white bandages of the wounded.
"To add to the difficulty, we were waiting every second for the enemy to resume shelling. One shell among that congested crowd would have had dreadful results. We had not left the place more than half an hour when we saw the flashes of guns behind us. . . . We got back to this town at 3.30 a.m. This is what goes on every night—leaving at dusk, getting back at 3.30, and hoping the enemy will refrain from shelling until we are back."
