The K.O.S.B.'s were now falling back on us from the right, and they were strung out along the Norfolks' late position, and almost at right angles to our line, for the Germans were pressing us there, and heavy rifle fire was breaking out there and nearly in our right rear. Then I ordered the Cheshires and after them the Bedfords to retire, which they did quite calmly and in good order; and lastly came the Dorsets, very well handled by Bols and forming a rear-guard to the rest of the troops hereabouts. His machine-guns under Lieut. Wodehouse had been doing excellent work, and the shooting of both Bedfords and Dorsets had had a great effect in keeping off the German attack hereabouts.
By this time units had become a bit mixed, and lines of troops belonging to different battalions and even different brigades were retiring slowly over the open ground and under a heavy fire of shrapnel—which by the same token seemed to do extraordinarily little damage. It was difficult to give a definite point for all these troops to move on, for we had been warned against retiring through villages, as they were naturally made a cockshy of by the enemy's guns. Reumont was being already heavily bombarded, and though we had instructions to fall back south-westwards along the road to Estrées, this road passed through Reumont. I did not know how to get comfortably on to it without going through some village, so gave a general direction off the road, between it and Bertry, and struck across country, together with a number of troops on foot in various formations, all moving quite steadily and remarkably slowly.
As the shrapnel were bursting in large numbers overhead, I got the men well extended, as best I could, but some of course were hit. Just as we left the road a man in charge of an ambulance-waggon full of wounded ran up and asked what he was to do, as some infernal civilian had unhitched and gone off with the horses whilst he was attending to the wounded. Stephenson, commanding K.O.S.B.'s, was lying wounded in the waggon, but this I did not hear till afterwards. Some of the K.O.S.B.'s thereupon very gallantly harnessed themselves to the waggon and towed it along the road.
It was hard work making our way mounted across country, because of the numerous wire fences we came across, not to mention ditches and hedges. We worked rather towards Bertry, avoiding woods and boggy bits, but the line wasn't easy to keep. The Germans had an unpleasant habit of plugging bursts of four to a dozen shrapnel at one range, then another lot fifty yards on, and so on, so it was no good hurrying on, as you only came in for the next lot. Then they very nearly got us just when we had got to a hopeless-looking place—the railway, with thick fence and ditch on each side of the track and a barbed-wire fence as well, with signal wires knee high just where you expected to be able to jump down on to the track. Luckily Catley, my groom, had some wire nippers; but just as he was cutting at the wire, and we of the Brigade Staff were all standing round close by, trying to get over or through, whack came four shrapnel, one close after the other, bursting just short of us and above us—a very good shot if intentional, but I don't think they could possibly have seen us. Horses of course flew all over the place; Cadell and his horse came down, and I thought he was hit, but he only lost his cap, and his horse only got a nasty flesh wound from a bit of shrapnel in his hindquarters. Again, why none of these shrapnel hit us was most extraordinary: there we were, seven or eight of us mounted and close together, and the shells bursting beautifully with terrific and damnable cracks—yet not one of the Brigade Staff touched. Beilby's horse, by the way, also got a bullet in the quarter.
These same shrapnel hit two or three infantry standing round us, and the next thing we saw was Dillon (of the Divisional Staff) dismounted and staggering along supporting two wounded privates and hoisting them over the obstacles on to the rail track, one man hanging heavily from his neck on either side. He was streaming with sweat, and said afterwards it was the hardest job he'd ever had. Others of course helped him and his men, and we wandered along over the grass, and skirting the little woods and coppices till we got to the main road again.
As we proceeded along the road we did our best to get the troops collected into their units, getting single men together into bunches and the bunches into groups and platoons, and so on. But many of them were wounded and dog-tired, and it was hard work. Ballard and his Norfolks joined us in bits, and we heard that they had had a hard time falling back through Reumont and done very well as rear-guard. There were stories at first of their having suffered terribly and lost a lot of men; but it was not in the least true,—they had had comparatively few casualties.
The country gradually grew more and more open till by dusk—somewhere about 7 o'clock—we were traversing a huge rolling plain with open fields and only occasional farmhouses visible. The troops on the road were terribly mixed, infantry and artillery and waggons and transport all jumbled up together, and belonging not only to different brigades but even to different divisions, the main ones being of course the 5th and 3rd Divisions.
Darkness came on, and the night grew cooler and cooler, yet still we pushed on. As it got blacker, terrible blocks occurred and perpetual unintentional halts. In one place, somewhere near the Serains-Prémont road I think, we were halted for about three-quarters of an hour by a jam of waggons just ahead. I gave the Norfolks leave to worm their way through the press, but it was no use, for before they had got through the waggons moved on again and only divided the men more and more, so that they lost their formation again and were worse off than before.
Companies or bits of companies of my battalions were pretty close together, and at one time the Brigade was pretty well cohesive, but as the night wore on they got separated again and mixed up with the transport till it was quite impossible to sort them out. It was a regular nightmare, and all one could look forward to was the halt at Estrées.