Lance-Corporal L——, R.E., 55th Co.:—Near Ypres, about October 22nd or 23rd, our section was ordered to assist the Highland Light Infantry, Queen’s and Worcesters in a drive through a wood. We passed a cottage on our right where fighting was going on. As we returned I saw two of our soldiers in a doorway carrying a wounded man. When they got out of the doorway one of the two soldiers was shot in the back by a German at a distance of about 80 yards. All firing had ceased—it was a deliberate aim. On the same day I saw two stretcher-bearers, who were tending a man on the ground, fired at at a distance of about 40 yards—a regular fusillade. There was no fighting going on—our other troops were about 300 or 400 yards ahead, and these snipers had been left behind by the Germans for the express purpose of picking off our wounded.
(25)
Private S——, 1st Northampton:—On the day after General F—— was killed (he was an artillery general), on the Monday, we advanced 14 miles, about, and bivouacked in a field. From our bivouac, about one mile distant, there was a little farm. We went to the farm to fill our water bottles, and a woman told us that her two daughters (whom we also saw) had been outraged the previous night by twelve or fourteen Germans. The woman spoke English quite well—at least, well enough for me to understand—very distinctly. The woman was not excited, but greatly distressed, and the two girls (one child sixteen, the other about nineteen—in fact, I think the woman said that the one was not sixteen) were still more distressed; they were in a pitiful plight. Listening to the story with me were Company Sergeant-Major M—— of D. Co., also Sergeant S——, also D. Co., and Corporal C——, likewise of D. Co.
(26)
Captain F——, 2nd Batt. Coldstreams:—
(1) On the Rentel ridge, near Ypres, and south of Sonnen, I have seen repeated cases of deliberate firing on stretcher-bearers which admitted of no doubt.
(2) On the Aisne, on a Monday (either September 13th or 14th) at Soupir, there was a bad case of trickery with the white flag. The Germans advanced from a farm-house with white flags at the end of their rifles, and on our men rushing forward, despite the warning of their officers, to take prisoners, they were shot down. We lost a whole company of the 3rd Batt. Coldstreams in this way.
(27)
Private L——, in the 1st Cornwall L.I.:—On September 9th (Wednesday) at Montreuil, I was wounded and being carried by two of ours, when about a quarter-mile from the firing-line I and other wounded were being brought down an exposed slope; the moment we appeared a machine-gun about 400 yards distant opened fire on us—several wounded hit.