His Last Wish
I came across a young chap sitting with his back against a tree—dead, and around him, in a circle, he placed all his letters and photographs, as much as to say: “Please post these to the people concerned, as I am dying”: A Private of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
The Christian Way
One of our men holding his water-bottle to a wounded German was shot dead close to Mons on Sunday. Another stopped under fire to light a cigarette, when a bullet struck him on the fingers, and one hand will have to come off: Private S. Burns.
Asked for the Colours
In the middle of the battle a driver got wounded and asked to see the colours before he died, and he was told by an officer that the guns were his colours. He replied, “Tell the drivers to keep their eyes on their guns, because if we lose our guns we lose our colours”: Driver W. Moore, Royal Field Artillery.
Not a Murmur
The grandest thing to buck a man up is the way our men take their wounds. You do not hear them yelling when they are hit. You hear the words, “I’ve got it, boys. Hard luck!” It is grand to see the way they take it, a smile on their face, and not a murmur as they are carried down on the stretchers: Pte. A. Robson, 7th Batt. Royal Fusiliers.
Saving a Tragedy
I was fetching our bottles of water. I crept to one house. The woman tried to tell me something in French. I could not understand, so she pulled me in the next room. There was a woman just confined. She was on the point of madness. I could not do anything, so I told my officer. He sent me for the parson, and got some of us together, and we carried her, bed and all, to a safe place: Pte. E. Smith, 2nd Worcestershire Regiment.