"Only seventy of the Blues are left, though," said one of them. "That's the hard part of it."
"You are sure to find more when things get straightened out," I replied. "Casualty lists always grow smaller when the returns are all in."
They trudged on soberly, "Hoping so." Splendid men.
I was sent to search the houses in Potijze, or what was left of them, for a couple of wounded officers who were reported to be waiting to be evacuated by an ambulance that had not yet arrived.
An Essex Yeomanry trooper limped slowly passed as I started, and I gave him a "lift" for a few hundred yards. He had badly sprained his knee during the charge the day before. By morning it had become so swollen and painful he could only hobble along with great difficulty. No thought of coming back to have it attended to, after the charge, had entered his mind.
"We were told to hang on till dark," he explained, "and it took all of us that were left to hang on. I couldn't have come back very well, could I?"
Before the day was over some of the official casualty lists of the brigades were compiled, and we were greatly cheered to find the losses were less heavy than had at first been reported.
The 1st Cavalry Division casualties for May 13th numbered 523. In the 1st Cavalry Brigade two officers were killed and five wounded, and 164 troopers killed or wounded. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade had a casualty list of 249. Three officers in the brigade were killed and eleven wounded. Among the killed was Lieutenant Lunan, a very brave medical officer attached to the 9th Lancers. The 18th Hussars lost 160, the 9th Lancers 140, and the 4th D.G.'s thirty-five.
The 3rd Cavalry Division suffered more heavily. David Campbell's 6th Brigade had eleven officers killed and twenty-two wounded—thirty-three out of a total of forty-nine. In the ranks, the Royals lost 117, the North Somerset Yeomanry 105, and the 3rd Dragoon Guards sixty-nine. The total for the brigade was 330 casualties. The 7th Brigade lost over 450 officers and men. Seven Leicestershire Yeomanry officers were killed and five were wounded. In the ranks, the Leicestershires had 180 casualties, making a total of over 190, all told, out of a strength of 300. The 8th Brigade's list of over 300 brought the total of killed and wounded for the 3rd Division to more than 1,100.
A patrol of 15th Hussars, under Lieutenant Kenneth Maclane, while the regiment was holding a part of the line to the north of Verlorenhoek, went up to the German first line trenches during the afternoon and found a section of them deserted, which showed the Huns were little better satisfied with the strategical location of their line than we had been with parts of ours.