It was now my turn for sentry go on the main road, which was still open for vehicles of our staff. This was a post where it was thought that, to use an American phrase, there would be “nothing doing”; yet it was here that I came face to face with one of the war’s finest examples of Teutonic over-assurance—boldness that would have been splendid had it not been stupid.
After I had been at my new post an hour, it then being near three o’clock in the morning, a motor car came swiftly toward me. I had been warned that I might expect staff officers to pass, and this, I thought, was undoubtedly some of them—otherwise the car would have advanced slowly. I stepped into the road and awaited its approach. As it neared me I saw that the two officers it contained wore the uniforms of the British staff. I could see the red tabs on their collars.
There were two telegraph poles across the road near my post. Remembering this, I showed myself and called for the chauffeur to halt. He checked the car’s speed but brought it ahead slowly. I shouted for the countersign. I was waiting for the occupants of the car to give it, intending to explain to them that they would have to stop until I called some one to help me remove the telegraph poles, when there was a sudden grinding of gears and the car shot ahead, full speed. I yelled a warning about the poles but the words left my lips at about the moment when the car bounced over them.
Until that time I had no suspicion that the occupants of the car were not what they seemed. Even then, the manner in which they “rushed” my post seemed to me only due to some inexplicable misunderstanding. But I had marched, and fought, and gone sleepless and hungry until I was little more than a mechanical soldier. I was able to realize only that somebody, for some reason, had ignored my challenge and rushed a sentry post. I swung my rifle in the direction of the car, aimed accurately (in an automatic way), and pulled the trigger. The noise of an exploding tire followed the crack of my weapon. The car skidded, twisted for a moment, and then went on—faster than ever.
My shot aroused our outpost. The alarm was given to the first of the connecting sentries and passed along quickly until it reached our company headquarters, on the roadside opposite to a château in which Brigade Staff headquarters had been established. Men half awake, tumbled into the roadway preparing to fire on something or somebody—they didn’t know what. It was useless for the car to attempt to rush the crowd. Again the chauffeur checked it, this time bringing it to a full stop. One of the occupants (who, it will be remembered, were in staff uniform) demanded sharply of the sentry in front of the château:
“What is the meaning of this? Are there nothing but blockheads about here? We have been fired on while looking for Brigade headquarters. Somebody should be court-martialled for this.”
The sentry saluted them and admitted them to the grounds of the château.
Their car had disappeared within the gates when I came running down the road and informed my company commander what had happened. He instantly ordered our men to surround the château and rushed in himself, following the car up the avenue leading through the grounds. The “staff officers” had abandoned their car in the shadow of a clump of trees and were seeking to escape over the garden wall when our men captured them. One of them, speaking English without a trace of accent, still tried to “bluff” our men who seized him, and his assumed indignation was so convincing that, but for the direct orders from the company commander, the men might have released him, believing him really an officer of our forces. Each of the two wore the uniform of a staff major with all the proper badges and insignia. It was found that they were German spies with rough maps of the disposition of our retreating forces and other valuable information in their possession. I was informed, later, that they were shot.
Before dawn, we got orders to retire again. It was always retire—retire. We were ready to fight ten times our number if only we could stop retiring.
Shortly after leaving this position we saw an airplane overhead. A few minutes later shrapnel began bursting in our direction. We scattered to each side of the highway, keeping under cover as best we could.