Hour after hour, all through the time of darkness, and until daylight came, that terrible fight went on. For seven long hours a few hundred British Guards had kept at bay an enormous body of Germans—and at the end of the firing we had killed far more than the whole of our force numbered when the battle began. We had given them wholesale death from our machine-guns, our rifles, and our artillery, and they had faced it—they had been driven on to it. Now they were to have the bayonet.
We gave them two charges; but they didn’t stop long, for as soon as they saw the cold steel on the ends of our rifles they were off like a shot, throwing down a lot of rifles and equipment. When this happened it was between five and six o’clock on the morning of the 27th, and we then got the order to retire.
We were told that we had lost 126 in killed and wounded. That was a heavy list, but not so big as we had expected, bearing in mind the furious nature of the fight. The marvel was that we had not been wiped out, and we should certainly have been in a very serious state if it had not been for the 17th Field Battery. There is this to be said, too: if the Germans had broken through our lines it would have meant that, in all probability, the whole Second Division of our army would have been cut up.
We fell in and were soon on the march again, retiring, and we marched as fast as we could go till we halted at a rather large town about ten miles from Landrecies. Here we were in clover, in a way of speaking, because we sheltered in a clay-pit where the French had been making bricks, and we all sat down and waited for our tea of German shells.
They soon came and we were on the move again, and we were constantly at it, retiring and fighting, until we halted about thirty miles from Paris; then we were told that after retiring another dozen miles it would be our turn to advance.
Didn’t we cheer? It was glorious to hear we were going to chase the Germans instead of their chasing us. At this time we had our first wash for a fortnight, and it was as good as having a thousand pounds given to us.
The fiercest fighting of the war has taken place on Sundays, and it was on a Sunday that the Battle of the Marne began. The Germans had had the biggest surprise of their lives on a Sunday, and that was at Mons. Though we had been kept on the go because they outnumbered us so hopelessly, we mauled them mercilessly on the retreat, teaching them many bitter lessons. When we got to the Marne and were able to tackle them on equal terms, they scarcely had a look in. The Germans had almost reached the forts of Paris, and, I daresay, had their bands ready to play them into the city. Soon, however, they were hurrying back on their tracks a good deal faster than they had come. We heard the German bands playing a good many times, but every time we heard the music it was farther away from Paris.
We covered such big tracks of country, and saw so many great happenings, that it is the most difficult thing in the world to know where to start a story of the Marne; but I will come down to the time just before the battle, when we were still retiring, and had got used to marching twenty or twenty-five miles a day. We had left the Germans very sore for coming too close to us, and we had gone through a small town and entered a great wood.
While we were in the wood I had to fall out. Almost instantly I heard the sound of talking which wasn’t English, and in the distance I saw six Germans coming after me as hard as they could. I thought it was all up with me, but I said “Come on, chum, let’s clear!”—“chum” being my rifle, which I had placed on the ground. I snatched it up and sprang behind a tree, and felt fairly safe. It’s wonderful what a feeling of security a good rifle and plenty of ammunition give you. I waited till the Germans got within a hundred yards of me; then with a good aim I fetched down two; but my position was becoming very critical, as the other four dodged from tree to tree, watching for a chance to pot me, and it looked very much as if they wouldn’t have long to wait. I don’t know what would have happened, but to my intense relief three men of the 17th Field Battery, which was passing, rushed up and shouted, “Don’t move. We’ll have ’em!”
By this time the four Germans were within about fifty yards, continually sniping at me—how I blessed them for being such bad shots!—and at last they came out into the open and made straight in my direction. But they only dashed about twenty yards, for my rescuers put “paid” to the four of them, and saved me from being made a prisoner and worse, far worse, for by that time we had seen proof enough of the monstrous things they did to men they captured—things you might expect from savages, but certainly not from soldiers of a nation that boasts so much of its civilisation.