This fine performance, typical of a great number of such deeds done in the war by resourceful men of which nothing has been heard and perhaps never will be, strikes me as being a very good illustration of doing exactly those things which the enemy does not expect you to do. Personally, I have always made a point of putting this principle into practice. If the enemy is waiting for you to take the highroad, the obvious thing, it seems to me, is to take to the fields, especially as in bad weather, in a country like Flanders, there is very little difference between the fields and the roads.

There is one interesting point which I may mention, and it is that so far I have had no difficulty in finding petrol. Nearly all the Belgian farmers use gas-engines, and their stores are very useful for motor cycles. I need hardly say that I never saw any want of willingness on the part of Belgian farmers to help the fighters who are doing their best to get the country back for them.

At present I am not a bit useful as a fighting man, because when I was going into the trenches I heard the ping of a German bullet and found that blood was running down my arm.

When I was actually struck I felt only a numb sensation, and did not for some time know what had happened; but later it was discovered that the bullet had struck me between the wrist and elbow of the right arm and had gone clean through, leaving a hole on each side of the arm.

Strange though it may seem, I felt little pain at any time, in spite of the fact that one of the bones of the arm was broken, and I am glad to say that this wound—and there have been an enormous number like it since the war began—is making a first-class recovery, and I shall soon be all right again.

A man does not go to war for fun, but there is a bright side to the grim business, as I found when I reached a Belgian hospital. I spent three very comfortable days there, and when I was sent off to England the nurse who was attending me very gravely made me a little present, which I as gravely accepted. She paid me three-halfpence! I did not know what it meant, but I concluded that I had received the Belgian’s rate of daily pay as a soldier, and his keep. I was perfectly satisfied, and I hope my excellent nurse was the same.

CHAPTER XXII
EXPLOITS OF THE LONDON SCOTTISH

[“Eye-Witness,” in his descriptive account of November 4th, dealing with the first phase of the desperate fight for Ypres, said that a special feature of the battle was that it formed an epoch in the military history of the British Empire, and marked the first time that a complete unit of our Territorial Army has been thrown into the fight alongside its sister units of the Regulars. That unit was the 14th (County of London) Battalion London Regiment, better known as the London Scottish. Its ranks contained many prominent men who gave up everything at their country’s call and went to the front. Amongst them was Mr. J. E. Carr, Managing Director of Scremerston Colliery, Northumberland, a well-known breeder of Border Leicester sheep, a keen rider to hounds and a thoroughly good sportsman. Private Carr served with the London Scottish until he was wounded and invalided home and it is his story which is here retold.]

It is very difficult to keep within defined limits the varied experiences that are crowded into a few months at the front in a war which is waged on such a vast scale as the present conflict. Every day has its own fresh and particular excitements which are worth remembering, and one can scarcely pick out, off-hand, the most startling or interesting phases of the campaigning. However, the earliest impressions undoubtedly cling most tenaciously, and I have vivid recollections of the thrill I experienced when our transport swung to her moorings and the London Scottish disembarked on the other side of the Channel.

I should like to say here that the London Scottish have been the subject of a good deal of comment, mostly favourable, I am glad to know; but there has been undue exaltation. The blame for this certainly does not rest with the London Scottish, but in other perfectly well-meaning quarters.