You mustn’t run away with the notion that we stand shivering or cowering under shell fire, for we don’t. We just go about our business in the usual way. If it’s potting at the Germans that is to the fore we keep at it as though nothing were happening, and if we’re just having a wee bit chat among ourselves we keep at it all the same.
Last week when I got this wound in my leg it was because I got excited in an argument with wee Georgie Ferriss, of our company, about Queen’s Park Rangers and their chances this season. One of my chums was hit when he stood up to light a cigarette while the Germans were blazing away at us.
Keep your eyes wide open and you will have a big surprise sooner than you think. We’re all right, and the Germans will find that out sooner than you at home.
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Letter 13.—From Private G. Kay, of the 2nd Royal Scots, to his employer, a milkman, at Richmond:
You will be surprised to hear I am home from Belgium in hospital with a slight wound in my heel from shrapnel. I had a narrow escape in Wednesday’s battle at or near Mons, as I was with the transport, and it was surrounded twice.
The last time I made holes in the stable wall, and had a good position for popping them off—and I did, too; but somehow they got to know where we were, and shelled us for three hours. Off went the roof, and off went the roof of other buildings around us. At last a shell exploded and set fire to our cooking apparatus and our stables. We had twenty-two fine horses, and all the transport in this stable yard. We hung on for orders to remove the horses. None came. At last a shell like a thunderbolt struck the wall, and down came half the stables, and as luck would have it, as we retired—only about six of us—my brother-in-law, the chap you were going to start when we were called up, went to the right and I went to the left. Just then a shell burst high and struck several down in the yard—it was then I got hit—smashed the butt of my rifle, and sent me silly for five minutes. Then I heard a major say, “For yourselves, boys.” I looked for my brother-in-law, but he was not to be seen, and I have not heard of him since. During all this time the fire was spreading rapidly. I was told to go back and cut the horses loose. I did so, and some of them got out, but others were burnt to death.
Then God answered my prayer, and I had strength to run through a line of rifle fire over barbed wire covered by a hedge, and managed to get out of rifle range, three hundred yards or four hundred yards away, and then I fell for want of water. I just had about two teaspoonfuls in my bottle, and then I went on struggling my way through hedges to a railway line.
When I got through I saw an awful sight—a man of the Royal Irish with six wounds from shrapnel. He asked me for water, but I had none. I managed to carry him about half a mile, and then found water. I stuck to him though he was heavy and I was feeling weak and tired. I had to carry him through a field of turnips, and half way I slipped and both fell. I then had a look back and could see the fire mountains high.
I then saw one of my own regiment, and called to him to stay with this man while I went for a shutter or a door, which I got, and with the help of two Frenchmen soon got him to a house and dressed him. We were being shelled again from the other end of the village then. We were about fifteen strong, as some slightly wounded came up and some not wounded. We got him away, and then met a company of Cameron Highlanders, and handed him over to them.