Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

The hero of this story is an infantry officer, one who had only just left St. Cyr (the French Sandhurst, and once, funnily enough, the most famous girls’ school in the whole world), and who first went under fire at the Battle of Meaux. Looking round in the thick of the fight he saw his major, who was a very small man, lying severely wounded in a field swept by the fire of the German guns.

There were some houses close by. Into one of these Lieutenant Gesrel ran, and he came out wheeling a perambulator. The men lying about him, taking what shelter they could, looked at him in amazement. He wheeled it briskly, but without appearing to hurry, out into the bullet-swept open space, until he came to where the major lay.

The men could hear the wounded officer protest. “Go away,” he said. “Leave me; I shall be all right. It’s madness to expose yourself like that.”

The lieutenant took no heed of this, but picked his major up, put him in the perambulator, and started to wheel it back to the edge of the little wood. At last he reached safety with his precious burden. Then he ran and joined his men in the fight again.

I expect you have heard how, at Fontenoy, the French called out to the British, “Fire first, gentlemen.” But the latter refused to fire, shouting back at once rudely and politely, “No, gentlemen and assassins, you begin!”

This famous exchange of courtesies is recalled by the action of another French lieutenant, who, during a sharp fight which took place round a small railway station near Meaux, pursued a German officer into a locomotive shed, and found him under the tender of an engine. The two looked each other up and down, and by tacit agreement took up a duelling position at fifteen paces. “Please fire first,” cried the French officer. The German fired and missed. Then the Frenchman fired and hit.

The last human quality one would naturally associate with war is kindness. Yet it is not too much to say that every great battle, every scene of carnage, is brightened by truly wonderful acts of kindness. By this I do not mean deeds of heroism, the saving of one gallant soldier by a pal, but simple, homely kindness. Such was the following:

Trooper Philippe, of the 2nd Chasseurs, under heavy artillery fire, bullets and shrapnel falling thickly, not only brought his captain in, but after that went back eight times more to take water to the wounded.

A French soldier, wounded in this same battle of Meaux, had with him a dog nestled in his coat while the fighting was going on, as it was apparently terrified at the noise of the firing. The soldier fed it from his rations, and after he was wounded smuggled it in the train which took him to the hospital.

Our own soldiers have always had a special fondness for dogs. It is said that when a dog once enters barracks he never afterwards seeks to change his quarters.