Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Cavalry horses love the stir and din, even perhaps the danger, of battle. The story goes that one day a milkwoman passing in her cart near where a regiment of cavalry was manœuvring, heard the trumpets sound. Her horse pricked up his ears and started off at full gallop towards the sentries, dragging the cart after it in spite of the poor woman’s efforts. It did not stop till it had joined the ranks!

We will now go back to the Battle of Mons—to the firing line, and to a remarkable act of gallantry performed by Captain Grenfell. The tale, as told by a corporal, cannot be improved on:

“The gunners had all been killed by shrapnel, and there were the guns with no one to look after them, and a good chance that the Germans might get them. The horses were safe enough, but there was no one to harness them. Captain Grenfell stepped out. ‘We’ve got to get those guns back,’ he said. ‘Who’s going to volunteer for the job?’ He had a couple of dozen of us before he had finished speaking. Since our chaps have seen him in the firing line, they would go anywhere with him.

“Well, we went out. There were bullets flying all round us and shrapnel bursting all over the place, but Captain Grenfell was as cool as if he was on parade. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘They can’t hit us. Come along!’ We got to the guns all right, hitched up the horses, and brought them back, and only three of our chaps were hit. It’s a wonder the whole lot of us were not wiped out.”

It was later in that same day that this gallant Captain Grenfell was wounded. He got a bullet in the thigh, and a couple of his fingers were hurt. His men brought him back from the firing line and sent for an ambulance to take him away, but while they were waiting for the ambulance a motor-car came along. “That’s exactly what I want,” said the Captain. “What’s the use of an ambulance to me? Take me back to the firing line.” And he got into the motor-car and went back, leaving the doctors to make what they liked of it!

Here is another story, of which the hero this time is a cavalry sergeant. This man had been badly wounded three times, but was still going on fighting. Suddenly he heard a corporal shouting to be taken out of the line. Turning round, he bound up his comrade’s wounds, set him on his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then, regardless of his own condition, he limped along to his regiment, and started fighting again.

And now for a very pathetic little incident.

In the middle of the battle, in a beautiful cornfield from which the men fighting could see all over the country, one of the drivers of a battery was badly wounded. He asked to see the colours before he died. His officer told him that the guns were his colours, and he answered: “Yes, that is true. Tell the drivers to keep their eyes on their guns, for if we lose our guns we lose our colours.”

These brave drivers have the strongest feeling of affection and loyalty for their guns.

On one occasion, also at Mons, two drivers brought a gun out of action, the shells bursting all round them. They had noticed that the gunners had all been killed, so they walked their horses down to save the gun. One driver held the horses under a fearful fire while the other “limbered up.” The gun was rushed safely back, neither men nor horses being hit. Their comrades, watching them from the trenches, thought it quite impossible for them to escape death, for shot and shell were ploughing the ground up all round them.