Soldiers' Stories of the War

by Unknown

I well remember the very first German I saw lying dead. He was an Uhlan, and was on the roadside. I was greatly distressed at the sight of him, there was something so sad about it all, but now there is no such sensation at the sight of even great numbers of the dead. A strange thing happened in connection with the Uhlan. I took his cap as a memento, and brought it home, with several other German caps and helmets, chunks of shell, clips of cartridges, and relics of altar-cloths; and now, for some cause which I can’t quite fathom, the Uhlan’s cap has turned a queer sort of yellow.

That strange callousness comes over one at the most unexpected times, and often enough a motor despatch-rider has to dash through a crowd of refugees and scatter them, though the very sight of the poor souls is heart-breaking. When Ypres was bombarded, the men, women and children thronged the roads, and all that was left to them in the world they carried in bundles on their backs; yet they had to be scattered like flocks of sheep when the motor despatch-riders rushed along. There was, however, one pleasing feature in the matter, and that was that these poor people knew that we were tearing along in their interests as well as our own, and that we did not mean to hurt anybody—which was different, indeed, from the spirit of the enemy, whose policy was to spread terror and havoc wherever he could, and to destroy mercilessly. When I first went into Ypres it was a beautiful old city, very much like Norwich, but I saw the German guns smash the place and the shells set fire to glorious old structures like the Cathedral and the Cloth Hall. The two pieces of altar-cloth which I brought home were taken from the Cathedral while it was burning.

Though you soon get used to war, still there are always things coming along which are either particularly interesting or very thrilling. Perhaps the most exciting incident I can call to mind is the bringing down of a German aeroplane by a British brigade. That was on October 27th, when I was with the brigade. It was afternoon, and the aeroplane was flying fairly low, so that it was a good target for the rain of bullets which was directed on it. Even when flying low, an aeroplane is not easy to hit, because of its quick, dodging movements, but this machine was fairly got by the brigade. Suddenly there was an explosion in the aeroplane, flames shot out and the machine made a sickening, terrible somersault. I took it that a bullet or two had struck the petrol tank and blown the machine up—anyway, the airman was shot out and crashed to earth with fearful speed. You wanted to look away, but an awful fascination made you keep your eyes on what was happening. At first the man looked like a piece of paper coming down, then, almost before you could realise the tragedy that was taking place, the piece of paper took the form of a fellow-creature—then the end came. The man himself smashed to earth about two hundred yards from the spot where I was watching, but the machine dropped some distance off. That was really one of the sights that no amount of war will accustom you to, and I shall never forget it as long as I live.

At first the weather was very hot, which made the work for the troops very hard. The machine I had soon struck work, and was left to be handed over to the Kaiser as a souvenir; and several other machines gave up the ghost in like manner. When a machine went wrong, it was left and a new one took its place—the list of casualties for motors of every sort is an amazingly heavy one; but casualties were inevitable, because in many places the roads that we had to take were perfect nightmares.

It was very hard going till we got used to it. During the first month at the front I had my boots off about three times—I am now wearing my fourth pair, which is an average of one a month—and we reckoned that we were lucky if we slept in a barn, with straw; if we couldn’t manage that we turned in anywhere, in our greatcoats. When I say sleep, I mean lying down for an hour or two, as sometimes we did not billet till dark. Then we had some grub, anything we could get, and after that a message. Next day we were off, five times out of six, at 3.30 to four o’clock, and got long, hard days in.

Amongst the messages we had to carry there were none more urgent than those which were sent for reinforcements, the men upon whose coming the issue of a battle depended. It was tear and scurry all along, but somehow the message would get delivered all right and the reinforcements would hurry up and save the situation. Often enough a message would be delivered at midnight to a tired officer who was living in a dug-out, and I scarcely ever reached one of these warrens without being invited to take something of whatever was going—it might be a drink of hot coffee, with a biscuit, or a tot of rum, which was truly grateful after a bitter ride. That is the only thing in the way of alcoholic drink at the front, and very little of it. This is, for the British, a teetotal war; but for the Germans it has been the very reverse, and time after time we came across evidence of their drunken debauches.

The shell fire was so incessant that it was soon taken as part of the day’s work. At first it was terrible, though one got used to it. My first experience of rifle fire did not come until I had been at the front for some weeks, and then I was surprised to find what a comparatively small thing it is compared with shells—it is not nearly so bad.

It was getting dark, and it was my duty to go down a lane where snipers were hidden in the trees. This was just the kind of lane you know in England, and you can easily picture what it meant. Imagine leaving your machine, as I did, in a tree-lined lane at home, and going down it, knowing that there were fellows up the trees who were on the watch to pot you, and you will realise what it meant; but you will have to picture also the sides of the lane being littered, as this was, with dead and wounded men. Well, I had to go down that lane, and I went—sometimes walking, sometimes running, with the bullets whizzing round and the shells bursting. But by good luck I escaped the bullets, though a piece of shell nearly nailed me—or would have got me if I had been with my machine. The fragment struck the cycle and I picked it up and brought it home with the other things as a souvenir.

That escape was practically nothing. It was a detail, and came in the day’s work; but I had a much more narrow shave a few days later. It was a Saturday and I had had a pretty hard time—amongst other things I had done a thirty-mile ride after one o’clock in the morning—the sort of ride that takes it out of you.

There was one of our orderlies with a horse near me and I was standing talking to him. We heard a shrapnel shell coming, and ducked our heads instinctively to dodge it—but the shell got at us. The horse was killed and the orderly was so badly hit that he died in less than an hour. He was buried in the afternoon, and very solemn the funeral was, with the guns booming all around. I was deeply shocked at the time, but war is war, and in a very short time the incident had passed out of my mind. Our fellows told me that I was one of the lucky ones that day.