The British soldier

by E. J. Hardy

Yes, our soldiers did realise that the enemy had feelings like themselves. After a battle a gunner wrote: "Their dead lay so thick at one point in front of our trenches that we couldn't get our guns across, because we were squeamish about riding over their dead in case there should be wounded men mixed up with them."

In many letters we read of our soldiers giving food when they had not much for themselves to wounded Germans.

A British officer who was being moved off on a stretcher with a shattered arm, noticed a German being helped in with a wounded leg. The officer at once got off the stretcher, saying, "Put that man on here. He is hit in the leg and I am hit in the arm and able to walk."

A Somersetshire Light Infantryman saw a wounded German in the river Aisne. He dived in and was bringing him out when a German shell burst and killed them both.

An Army Chaplain saw an English wounded soldier lying next a German wounded prisoner who was shot in both arms; the Englishman was holding a cigarette whilst the German smoked it.

One German gave a gold ring and another his helmet as souvenirs to two British soldiers who had given them water and bandaged their wounds.

The German prisoners got quite fond of our soldiers. One of them escaped, but returned next day with eleven others whom he had persuaded to desert.

In a lane through a wood at Soissons a correspondent met two British infantrymen helping a wounded German towards the place where they hoped to find an ambulance. The German had been badly hit in the upper part of the body and again in the thigh. He was in agony and kept protesting under his breath that he could go no farther. His friendly enemies almost carried him between them, and they were talking to him after this fashion: "Come on naow, ol' pal. You ain't goin' to give up naow. Almos' there, we are. Jus' be'ind them there trees over there. 'Ere, take a drink o' water an' you'll feel better. Come, ol' man, be a sport naow."

The following is from the letter of a corporal of the Highland Light Infantry: "In the retreat from Mons an artilleryman, slightly wounded, asked a German for water, and was refused. On the Aisne last week the artilleryman recognised the same German among a party of wounded, whose cries for water couldn't be attended to quick enough. The recognition was mutual, and the German stopped his crying, thinking he was sure to be paid back in his own coin. The artilleryman took out his water bottle and handed it to the German without a word. You never saw anybody look so shamefaced as that German."