"The Macdonalds have always been on the right since the '45." And the right this morning was a post of danger. Gibson was heard cheering his troops on in the darkness, and continually pressed on always in the van. When he reached the first parapet of our old trenches he cried: "Come on, boys, home at last!" That moment he was fatally hit by a bullet.
There was a famous race between rival battalions to see which should first reach a certain well-known point which I may call Rutland House. Although under heavy fire, the men's zeal could not be checked. On they pounded, panting in the darkness, until a gleam of red fire shot up, and the hoarse voice of a brawny Canadian Highlander was heard calling:--
"We're in first, you beggars o' the --th!"
As showing the spirit of the men, there is the case of two wounded soldiers hit by the same bullet, one in the face and the other in the arm. They were quarrelling as they lay there on the ground side by side. An officer approached and asked what was the matter. The bone of contention was the bullet. One argued warmly that he ought to have it as a souvenir, as he was the first to be hit by it, but the other contended that it was his by rights, as it stayed in him.
On the whole, the Germans put up a poor fight that first day of the counter-attack, and allowed themselves to be taken prisoners by scores. A batch of eight was put in charge of a corporal, with orders to conduct them to the rear. The little procession moved backward, and was seen by other Germans, scattered about in the supporting trenches, who promptly threw away their rifles and joined it, so that instead of being depleted when it reached battalion headquarters, the astonished corporal found that he had nearly twice as many prisoners as he had set out with.
When Major Kemp was wounded, and he and a wounded private were making their way down a trench, they heard a movement in a dug-out. Neither had any weapon. Out came a German. Kemp seized him, took his rifle from him, and gave the private the bayonet. With the German rifle, and his companion with the bayonet, Kemp took six more prisoners. Thus, when they arrived to have their wounds dressed, they had a following of seven prisoners.
Once an unarmed German private advanced towards two of our men, and, shaking his fist in the direction of his compatriots, badly begged for a British rifle that he might fight on our side. A Canadian officer, since mortally wounded, Lieutenant Kitson, was invited by two German privates to enter their dug-out, where he found four other Germans, who, in broken English, begged to surrender.
Later that same day, when the enemy barrage behind and bombardment in front became hotter, so that the supports we wanted could not come up easily, one brave officer, Lieutenant Richardson, who had received his promotion from the ranks, took charge, with only three men, of a whole line of trenches. "You can count on me, sir, to keep them," he said to his colonel; and he held on to the trenches amidst a most terrific shelling the whole of that day. The supports came up at last, but just too late: the brave Richardson had disappeared--it is feared for ever.
V.
June 15th.