“He Saved Others”
We were working in touch with a French corps on our left, and early one morning we were sent ahead to this village, which we had reason to believe was clear of the enemy. On the outskirts we questioned a French lad, but he seemed scared and ran away. We went on through the long narrow street, and just as we were in sight of the end a man dashed out from a farmhouse on the right. Immediately the rifles began to crack in front, and the poor chap fell dead before he reached us. He was one of our men, a private of the ——. We learned that he had been captured the previous day by a party of German cavalry, and had been held a prisoner at the farm, where the Germans were in ambush for us. He guessed their game, and though he knew that if he made the slightest sound they would kill him, he decided to make a dash to warn us of what was in store. He had more than a dozen bullets in him. We buried him next day with military honours. His identification disc and everything else was missing, so that we could only put over his grave the tribute, “He saved others.” There wasn’t a dry eye among us when we laid him to rest in that little village: A Corporal at the Aisne.
Heroes All
In one of our fights it was necessary to give orders to a battalion holding an exposed position to retire. Bugle-calls were no good, and the only thing was for men to risk their lives by rushing across an open space of 400 yards at least under a hellish fire. Volunteers were asked for from the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and, though every man knew that he was taking his life in his hand, the whole lot volunteered. They couldn’t all go, so they tossed for it in files, the man who couldn’t guess the way the coin came down at least once out of three times being selected. The first was a shock-headed chap who didn’t look as if there was very much in him. Ducking his head in a comic way that would have made you roar, he rushed into that blinding hail of bullets. He cleared the first 100 yards without being hit. It was a miracle how he did it, but in the second lap he was hit. He ran on for a minute or two, but staggered and fell after being hit a second time. Two more men stepped forward and dashed across while the Germans were doing their best to pink them. One picked up the wounded man and started to carry him in to the trenches, while the other ran ahead with the precious dispatch. Just as the wounded man and his mate were within a few yards of safety and we were cheering them for all we knew, there was a perfectly wicked volley from the Germans, and both of them collapsed. We dragged them in, but it was too late. Both were dead. The fourth man kept up his race against death and seemed to bear a charmed life, but in the last lap as you might say he went down like a felled ox. He was seen from the trenches to which the message was being taken, and half a dozen men ran out to his aid, the Germans renewing their fire with greater fierceness. The whole of the little party was shot down, but the wounded Fusilier still continued to crawl to the trenches with his message. Another party came out and carried him in, as well as seeing to the others. Later the battalion holding the advanced position was able to fall back in good order, but it wasn’t the least bit too soon, and had it not been for those brave chaps, who risked their lives to carry that message, there would have been a battalion less to fight our battles that day, as the Germans were working round unknown to the officer in command, and would have cut it off as sure as I’m a soldier: A Corporal of the Gloucester Regiment.
[XIV. TALES OF TRAGEDY]
Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,