“Talk About Excitement!”
It was like going to a football match, cracking jokes and singing all the ragtimes we knew. All our fellows knew what depended upon the result, and that only made them the more determined. But it was determination in the best of spirits. And how our fellows did fight, with always a joke handy and utter fearlessness. The Germans looked like a forest approaching, but that didn’t daunt us, and our artillery replied to theirs with interest. For hour after hour it was one continuous stream of shot and shell. Their artillery was the best part about them, their individual firing being poor, but our artillery was far better, though their biggest guns created the most havoc among our ranks. Talk about excitement, it was all excitement from the beginning and during the retirement. There was nothing else for us to do. It was a rare hot time. We were working for concentration the whole time, and there is no doubt about it, our orders were the best possible under the circumstances. The Germans were making a mark of us all along, but directly we got our chances we let them have it: A Private, at Mons.