We had been entrenched two days when a German spy was captured. He spoke English as well as I do, and shouted to me, “I surrender, I surrender; take me prisoner.” He was placed in a corner of the trench, seven feet deep, and was guarded. He soon began to chatter, and told us his history in such a plausible manner that we believed him. He told us he had been in private service as a butler in Surrey and Sussex, and also a waiter in hotels at Brighton, Liverpool, and Manchester. The devil actually cried when he pulled out of his pocket the photo of a girl he said he intended making his wife when the war was over if he was spared, and begged we would not take it away from him. He said she was a Lancashire lassie—he could put on the north-country dialect all right—and read portions of a letter she wrote him when he was called up. The traitor gave us a lot of supposed information about the Germans, and pretended to be as wild as a March hare when he spoke of their officers. They were everything that was bad. I must admit I thought the fellow was genuine, and I gave him some of my rations, but several of the others had their doubts. He had been with us three days when he showed himself in his true colours. It was pitch dark, and raining like cats and dogs. He jumped out of the trench and made a dash for the German trenches, but he did not get thirty yards away before he was brought down. The next morning we saw his dead body lying where he fell: Sapper A. G. Hutton, R.E.
A Barricade
We were just about five minutes billeted in the various houses and just stretching our legs when our officer came running in shouting, “The Germans are upon us; outside, everyone.” We came out magazine loaded, bayonets fixed, and eager to get a good bayonet fight with them. It appears they do not like it, but we found none; they had not yet arrived. It was 10 P.M. before they did so. In the meantime, the poor people were leaving the town in crowds with as much goods and chattels as they could carry away, and it was well for them, too. It was a dark night when we formed up in the streets, and the lamps but dimly burned. The noises of rifles and field guns were terrific. We rushed to the heads of the various streets, where our German foe would advance. Our field artillery and the Coldstream Guards went out to delay their advance, whilst we stripped off our coats and commenced to tear up the square setts, gather carts—in fact, everything that would build a barricade to keep back our numerous German foe, and we did so under perfect showers of shrapnel shell that fell around us and struck the houses about us, but we were undaunted, and so succeeded: Private Spain.
Wounded and Waiting
The order came to retire to a neighbouring haystack. How the bullets flew about! Up I jumped, and up the slope I ran. I soon reduced the distance. Another 100 yards to safety—80, 60, 40, 30, 15 yards. Oh, my left knee! I dropped down flat, with my right arm underneath my body, and my left hand feeling if my leg was still on. An officer ran by shouting out, “Wounded, lie still.” I was laid on my chest, and I could see them coming, 200 yards behind me. They did not put their rifles to their shoulders, but fired from the hips. Bullets were spitting in the ground around me. “Should I ever get out of this?” I thought. Something seemed to say to me, “Keep still, and you will be all right.” On the Germans came to within 100 yards of me, then 50 yards, then 20 yards, then 10 yards, and there they halted. They were on the slope leading to the stack, and after a short conversation two of them came in my direction. “Now for it,” I said to myself. But no, they passed me and went to the top of the hill. My arm beneath my body was paralysed, and I could feel the blood running from my wound. Now and again I could hear one of them shout out, “Hoch, Kaiser!” and I said to myself, “Hurrah for the King!” Then I saw them fall in, and about to turn. Thank God! off they went: Pte. Wood, Coldstream Guards.
[VIII. HOW IT FEELS UNDER FIRE]
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!