Soldiers' Stories of the War

by Unknown

We fetched Captain Northey to explain things to the women, and as he entered the house a shell burst near him and took off part of one of his trouser-legs, but without hurting him. The captain took no notice of this little drawback, and into the house he went, and made the women understand that we were English troops; and I can assure you that when they realised that they simply went wild with joy, and hugged and kissed us.

We had gone out to learn, if we could, something about the enemy’s strength, and we got to know that there were about 30,000 Germans in front of our brigade, and that they were entrenched.

The Sherwood Foresters, who were in reserve to us, were ordered to relieve us, and it was wonderful to see they way in which they came into the village we had taken, smoking cigarettes as if they were doing a sort of route-march, although they came right up against a hail of bullets, with the usual shells. In face of such tremendous odds they had to retire; but, like good soldiers, they prepared another lot of trenches near the village, and later on we went into them.

In such fighting as this war brings about there are many, many sad incidents, and one of the saddest I know of occurred at this particular village. There was a fine young soldier named Matthews, who came from West Hartlepool, I think it was. He was struck by shrapnel, and we saw that he was badly hurt. We did what we could for him, but it was clear that he was mortally wounded, and that he knew it. His last thought was for home and wife, and he said he would like his cap-badge to be sent to her, to be made into a brooch. I believe that a comrade, who was also a neighbour of his, undertook to do this for him.

It was my good fortune to see the little Gurkhas rout the enemy, who had attacked them, and to give the Germans a most unpleasant shock.

The Germans had been shelling the East Yorkshires, who were now on the right of the Durhams. The enemy had the range almost to an inch, and the effect of the shelling was terrible. Hour after hour this shelling was kept up pitilessly, and the German aeroplanes—“birds,” we called them—swooped about and saw the havoc that was being done. This sort of thing went on till after dark, and the Durhams wondered if any of the East Yorkshires were left.

There was a surprise in store for us at dawn next day when we awoke, for the East Yorkshires’ trenches were full of Gurkhas, who had slipped in during the night. The Germans knew nothing of this. All they knew was that their shells had been pounding on the East Yorkshires for hours, and doubtless they had satisfied themselves that no troops on earth could stand such a gruelling.

The Germans came on pretty confidently, after dawn, to the position of the East Yorkshires—came on in a cloud. That was after we had repulsed an attack on ourselves, but not finally, owing to the vast numbers of the Germans. Perhaps they expected to find the trenches filled with English dead and wounded, and certainly to us it seemed as if the trenches must be in that condition, for the Gurkhas let the Germans come on without showing a sign of life.

The Germans gave enough warning—as they always do. Bugles sounded, and they rushed on, shouting and yelling; but still there was no sound from the trenches, no sign of life was seen. Even we, who had a fine view of the trenches, could see nothing. We were intensely interested, though we had plenty of hard work to do ourselves in firing at the enemy.

When the Germans got to within about forty yards of the trenches on our left, the little brown fellows, who had been lying so low, sprang up and simply poured over the tops of the trenches. That performance was one of the most extraordinary things seen in the war. The Gurkhas never even attempted to fire; they just seemed to roll over the ground, gripping their long, curved knives.