“How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the guards jäger battalion, fourth jäger, sixth regiment, reserve regiment thirteen, and landwehr regiments thirteen and sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.
“In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C. O., one to Captain ——, and one to Surgeon ——. [Names probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.
“During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.
“War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.
“Yesterday evening, about six, in the valley in which our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.”
THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH
How foe helps foe when the last grim hour comes is revealed in the letter which a French cavalry officer sent to his fiancée in Paris:
“There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid.
“The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavoring to stanch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side.