The Best of It
They were in front of us before we had time to entrench ourselves, and we had to make the best of what cover we could find in a country as level as Glasgow Green. Still, we made the best of it, and the Germans were far from getting it all their own way. They came on us in swarms, but we sent them back time and again, and if it had not been for their shrapnel we could have been peppering them yet. As it was, we were suddenly alive to the fact that there was a trenchful of them lying quiet just in front of us, waiting to catch us on the retreat, and it was with a demoniacal howl we received the order to charge. It was a charge with the pipes playing for all they were worth, and you could hear the roll of the kettledrums above the sound of the firing. Our men bayoneted all who could not get out of the trench, about 600 of them; and the Middlesex Regiment got in on all who ran. It was a bloody fray, no quarter being asked nor given, and as we returned to our first position we were satisfied that we had given much more than our enemies expected from us: Pte. A. M‘Nally, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.