Next morning, the thirty-first, the Germans bombarded us more violently than ever. This continued for several hours. The next thing was that we saw the Germans coming; and they did come—in their thousands. We kept them off for an hour or two when the C.O. of the King's Royal Rifles consulted us, or rather our C.O., about retiring. I remember the two Officers having a heated argument over it, as they stood by a farm-house immediately in rear of the line. I do not, however, know what their argument was, but heard afterwards that the King's Royal Rifles had got short of ammunition. The words I did hear from our C.O. were: "It's the General's orders that we hold the position at all costs, and this I'll do if I lose the whole regiment."
We continued to fire until the Germans were on our trenches and coming through the line the King's Royal Rifles had vacated on our left. I was in the third line of steps near the farm-house, where I overheard some of the conversation of the two C.O.'s. Just in front of the King's Royal Rifles' trenches was a huge German Officer waving with one hand to the retiring Rifles to surrender and with the other waving his troops on. It did not seem of much good for us few men to attempt to fight that dense mass of Germans, but we did; and out of the thousand, or thereabouts, that we lined up with a couple of nights before very few got away, the enemy taking somewhere about four hundred of my Regiment prisoners and our casualties being about the same number.
I had a run for my life that day. A chum of mine who was with us had a cock-fowl in his valise that morning from the farm; he had wrung its neck but he had not quite succeeded in killing him; and, as we ran, this bird began to crow. As for myself, I had no equipment; I had run having left it in the bottom of the trench. It is quite funny as I come to think of it now—the old cock crowing as we ran; but it was really terrible at the time. We were absolutely overwhelmed, not only in our particular spot but all along the line, and had to concede nearly one thousand yards to the enemy. We were also very unfortunate in losing our Brigadier, General Bulfin, wounded on the cross-roads by a piece of shell, I believe; also our Brigade Major, who was killed with another piece from the same shell. I am sure every man in the Brigade felt very keenly the loss of the Brigadier; it was he who took us out from Aldershot, and not a better General or a braver or cooler soldier under fire ever stepped on field of battle.
Most of my Regiment being gone and the remainder mixed up with other Brigades which had formed another line, two chums and myself went to a farm-house fifty yards behind this newly made line. There we had a field battery; and, after getting a little rest, started out to find the remnants of the Regiment. The enemy were still shelling, and the battle was still going on; but by nightfall, not finding any of them, we came back to the old house and found the battery gone. We decided to rest there for the night with some more stray men of different Regiments. Just in front of us, and in rear of the line, lay a wounded German. We decided to bring him in, and did so: he had been hit in the mouth, half of his tongue having been taken away. The poor fellow was in agony, every now and then lying on the ground and kicking. One of our men volunteered to take him back to the field ambulance, and did so.
That night we slept on beds in the farm-house, and next morning, November the first, after a hurried breakfast of biscuits and beef, we all set out to join our respective Regiments; but, after wandering about for an hour and seeing no signs of any of ours, my two chums—one of them now holds the V.C.—decided to go back to the farm-house and make a dinner. There was plenty of vegetables in the garden and an outhouse full of potatoes; and we found a spirit-lamp and a pot; so we commenced to prepare our meal. In a short time it was all in the pot, when—alas!—the Germans began to shell our house, sending over incendiary shells. They let us have it battery fire. The first lot took off the off fore-leg of a cow, which along with some others was grazing at the back of the house; the poor thing hopped around on three legs for a second or two and then dropped, the other cows running up to lick the blood from its wound. The next lot hit the top of the house, one shell taking away the roof of the scullery, behind which one of my chums was standing; the other had already run into the trenches fifty yards away. I was the last to go, the other two having thought that I had been hit. I did not leave the place until the house was well alight; and three hours after, when the enemy's guns had died down and the fire had burnt out the house, I went over to see how the dinner had got on, and found it done to a turn, cooked by the heat from the burning house. Needless to say, we did full justice to that dinner—all three of us.
We then went into the trenches with the Scots Guards and on the left of them were some of the Gloucesters. On inquiring if they had seen any of the North Lancashires they replied, "Yes; they had gone back to the reserve trenches in the wood, there to reorganize." There we found the Regiment, or rather the few that were left of it—about one hundred and thirty.
That night we received from England a draft of reinforcements one hundred strong. After resting in those trenches that night, we were taken a little farther back to a wood in the front of Hooge and on the right side facing the firing line. There we dug new trenches and dug-outs, and always came back to them on after occasions to rest. We were never once taken into Ypres or any buildings, since the enemy had during the last few days commenced to shell the town and some parts were on fire. This information we got from our transport drivers, who had gone back some way behind Ypres.
We rested in these trenches for two days, and were then called out—on the afternoon of the second of November—in support of the 3rd Brigade. We went up in the usual skirmishing order, three other men and myself going on in front to warn the C.O., when we came into touch with the Welsh Regiment. We were very heavily shelled going up, but reached the Welsh with insignificant losses. Lying in front of the Welsh and around a farm-house were a party of French troops. On the word that we had arrived and come into touch with the Welsh, our Regiment was made to halt in a wood just behind and lie down. We were only just off the road a little to the right, and I estimate the Germans were about seven hundred to eight hundred yards off. While we were there a 4.7 gun was brought up on the road, and at the above-mentioned distance fired point-blank into the advancing Germans. An hour afterwards, the Welsh made a charge, and a fairly successful one it was, meeting, as it did, the enemy in the open. They returned to their original position, while we took up a position to their right.
That night we again dug trenches, and next day, November the third, we had very little to contend with—only shell-fire; and we continued during the day to strengthen our trenches. At night we again moved a little nearer to the enemy, and commenced another line of trenches. By next morning we were well dug in, and it was a good job that we were, as the Germans bombarded us very heavily. At that period we did not have lines of trenches where one could walk about; merely the usual one-man trench. The Germans shelled us from early morning until darkness set in and our casualty list was close on fifty, in addition to which we lost our C.O. and our Adjutant, Major Carter and Captain Allen, both killed.