Letter 73.—From Private G. Rider:
The Germans are good and bad as fighters, but mostly bad so far as I have seen. They are nearly all long distance champions in the fighting line, and won’t come too near unless they are made to. Yesterday we had a whole day of it in the trenches, with the Germans firing away at us all the time. It began just after breakfast, and we were without food of any kind until we had what you might call a dainty afternoon tea in the trenches under shell fire. The mugs were passed round with the biscuits and the “bully” as best they could by the mess orderlies, but it was hard work getting through without getting more than we wanted of lead rations. My next-door neighbour, so to speak, got a shrapnel bullet in his tin mug, and another two doors off had his biscuit shot out of his hand when he was fool enough to hold it up to show it to a chum in the next trench.
We are ready for anything that comes our way, and nothing would please us better than a good big stand-up fight with the Germans on any ground they please. We are all getting used to the hard work of active service, and you very seldom hear complaints from anybody. The grousers, who are to be found in nearly every regiment, seem to be on holiday for the war.
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Letter 74.—From Private Martin O’Keefe, of the Royal Irish Rifles, to his friends at Belfast:
Our part in the fighting was limited almost entirely to covering the retreat by a steady rifle fire from hastily-prepared trenches. We were thrown out along an extended front, and instructed to hold our ground until the retiring troops were signalled safe in the next position allotted them. When this was done our turn came, and we retired to a new position, our place being taken by the light cavalry, who kept the Germans in check as long as they could and then fell back in their turn. The Germans made some rather tricky moves in the hope of cutting us off while we were on this dangerous duty, but our flanks were protected by cavalry, French and English, and they did not get very far without having to fight. When they found the slightest show of resistance they retreated, and tried to find an easier way of getting in at us. The staff were well pleased with the way we carried out the duty given to us, and we were told that it had saved our Army from very serious loss at one critical point. We put in some wonderfully effective shooting in the trenches, and the men find it is much easier making good hits on active service than at manœuvres. The Germans seemed to think at first that we were as poor shots as they are, and they were awfully sick when they had to face our deadly fire for the first time.
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Letter 75.—From Sergeant W. Holmes:
We are off again, this time with some of the French, and it’s enough to give you fits to hear the Frenchmen trying to pick up the words of “Cheer Boys, Cheer,” which we sing with great go on the march. They haven’t any notion of what the words mean, but they can tell from our manner that they mean we’re in good heart, and that’s infectious here. We lost our colonel and four other officers in our fight on Tuesday. It was the hottest thing we were ever in. The colonel was struck down when he was giving us the last word of advice before we threw ourselves on the enemy. We avenged him in fine style. His loss was a great blow to us, for he was very popular. It’s always the best officers, somehow, that get hit the first, and there’s not a man in the regiment who wouldn’t have given his life for him. He was keen on discipline, but soldiers don’t think any less of officers who are that. The German officers are a rum lot. They don’t seem in too great a hurry to expose their precious carcasses, and so they “lead” from the rear all the time. We see to it that they don’t benefit much by that, you may be sure, and when it’s at all possible we shoot at the skulking officers. That probably accounts for the high death rate among German officers. They seem terribly keen on pushing their men forward into posts of danger, but they are not so keen in leading the way, except in retreat, when they are well to the fore. Our cavalry are up to that little dodge, and so, when they are riding out to intercept retreating Germans, they always give special attention to the officers.