False Bugle-calls
We found the Germans continually sounding our bugle-calls for the purpose of deceiving our men, and one of our worst fights took place at a place I can’t tell you the name of, because the Germans sounded the retreat for one of our advanced battalions, and then it was attacked in murderous fashion as it deployed across the open in the belief that it was being ordered to fall back. For a time that threw the whole line into confusion, but we soon got right again, and drove the Germans off in fine style with the bayonet. After that bugle-calls were dispensed with, but the Germans soon “tumbled” to that and took to picking off the dispatch-riders who were sent with orders. In that way it happened that bodies of men never got their orders to retreat or advance, and that’s why some of our regiments got cut up here and there: A Private of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment.