After the fire in the barn we got a couple of hours more sleep, then moved off again about three o’clock in the morning. We were on the Metz road going east, but did not know it until our officers informed us that we were heading toward the Franco-German frontier. They were ever optimistic and helped to lighten the burdens of men who were on the last lap by carrying sometimes the rifles of four of them at one time on their shoulders. In the afternoon we came to Coulommiers. Most of the inhabitants were leaving, and a herald—such as existed in the Middle Ages,—was going through the town beating a kettle-drum and crying to all the civilians to take everything they could carry and leave the place. But this herald was a middle-aged woman.
About two o’clock that same day, we were on the banks of a stream and the whole regiment began making preparations for a swim. Some were already in the water, but had scarcely got entirely wet when the German artillery began churning the water with shrapnel. The bodies of many of my comrades went floating down stream.
That night my company guarded a road protected by barbed-wire entanglements and lined with poplar trees; just the kind of road you so often see pictured in France or Belgium. The main body of the regiment was dug in the side of a hill overlooking this road. It was again the luck of my section to protect the road some two hundred yards in advance of the regiment. We entrenched ourselves on each side in such a manner that one could advance within ten yards without detecting our position. We placed a few strands of the barbed-wire fencing across the road a little distance ahead of us.
About midnight, I was awakened by someone tugging at me. It was the sentry. He pointed far up the road, and, as there was a certain amount of moonlight, I could see something moving between the tall poplar trees. He asked me what it was and I told him that it was our cavalry. However, I told him he should inform the section commander; and then I rolled off to sleep again.
Presently I felt a second tug at me. On looking up I found it was our sergeant; he whispered: “Be ready to spring up at a moment’s notice.” The others were already in position. In the dim light I could see the queer-shaped lance-caps that the Uhlans wore.
“Halt! Who goes there?” shouted the sentry.
“Freunden,” said a voice in reply.
With that they were almost on the barbed-wire, and we greeted them in the way such “friends” should be greeted. There was a tremendous turmoil. All but two fell into our hands. To be exact, fifteen were captured and three killed. Three of the captives were officers.
One of the officers, when searched, was found to have in his possession a novelty mirror with the photograph of a girl on the back. He made no fuss about giving up anything but the mirror. This, however, he insisted upon having back. Finally the examining officer, Major Lord George Stewart Murray, became suspicious and decided that the Boche’s sentiment was not on the level. He stripped the photograph off the back. Under it he found a thin sort of skin and, underneath that, pasted to the back of it, a paper covered with writing. He returned the mirror to the German officer, but he retained the paper; and the writing gave the staff much satisfaction.
All night long we were troubled by similar parties of Uhlans. They were evidently feeling out for an attack, but, not being able to gauge our strength, they never made it. Some of our boys crawled out from the trenches to rescue a trooper with a broken leg, and they said that only a few paces away they could not distinguish the trench or tell how many men were there. If the Uhlans had only known the facts they could have swarmed over us. In the morning we collected souvenirs from the field. One of the fellows picked up a lance with two bullet holes clean through the steel tubing shaft.