That was the beginning of one of the most awful periods of the war, especially for the despatch-riders, for we were at it night and day. The roads were hopelessly bad, and as we were not allowed to carry any lamps at night the danger of rapid travel was greatly increased. We were, however, relieved to some extent by mounted men. The fighting was furious and incessant, and we were in the thick of a good deal of it. After a very hard spell I was quartered all day in a little stable, and it proved to be about the most dangerous place I had come across. On October 29th the Germans went for the stable with high explosives and the everlasting “scuttles.” For some time these big shells came and burst in the locality, and two houses within a score of yards of us were blown to pieces and enormous holes were driven in the ground.
From the stable we went to a house, and then we fairly got it. Four huge shells came, one after the other, and one came and ripped the roof just like paper. We were amazingly lucky, however, for the worst thing that happened was that a fellow was wounded in the leg. I was thankful when the order came to pack up and stand by, for there were in that little place about twenty of us from different regiments, and a single explosion would have put us all well beyond the power of carrying either despatches or anything else. For a while we could not understand why the enemy should so greatly favour us, but we soon learned that they were going for some French guns near us. So the firing went on, and when we went to sleep, as we did in spite of all, bullets ripped through the roof, coming in at one side of the building and going out at the other, and four more big shells paid us a most unwelcome visit.
I was thankful when we moved out of those unpleasant quarters and took up our abode in a large farmhouse about three hundred yards away. This was one of the very few buildings that had escaped the ravages of the German artillery fire. We made the move on the 30th, when the cannonade was very heavy, yet the only casualties were a pig and two horses. We were now much better protected from the Germans’ fire, though the very house shook with the artillery duel and the noise grew deafening and almost maddening. I wrote home pretty often, and I remember that at this time I got behind a hedge to write a letter, and as I wrote bullets whizzed over my head, fired by German snipers who were up some trees not very far away. They were going for our chaps in the trenches a mile away.
Mons had been bad, and there had been many harrowing sights on the retreat, but at the end of October and the beginning of November the climax of horror was reached. The Germans, mad to hack their way through to the coast, and perhaps realising that they would never do it, stuck at nothing. They were frantic, and I saw sights that would sicken any human being. No consideration weighed with them, they simply did their best to annihilate us—but they are trying still to do that and not succeeding.
We had left the farmhouse and gone into a large château, which served as headquarters, and here, on November 2nd, we had a ghastly experience. It is likely that the Germans knew the particular purpose to which the château had been devoted; at any rate they shelled it mercilessly, and no fewer than six staff officers were killed, while a considerable number were wounded. Again I was lucky, and came out of the adventure unscathed. On the following day, however, I was nearly caught. I had taken a message to headquarters and was putting my machine on a stand. To do this I had to leave a house, and go about fifty yards away, to the stand. I had scarcely left the building when two shells struck it fair and plump, and killed two motor cyclists and wounded three others. Like a flash I jumped into a ditch, and as I did so I heard the bits of burst shell falling all around me. When I got out of the ditch and went back along the main road I saw a huge hole which a shell had made. It was a thrilling enough escape, and shook me at the time, because I knew the two poor fellows who were killed. That was the kind of thing we went through as we jogged along from day to day.
I am not, of course, giving a story of the war so much as trying to show what it means to be a motor cycle despatch-rider at the front. He is here, there and everywhere—and there is no speed limit. He is not in the actual firing line, yet he sees a great deal of what is going on. Sometimes he is very lucky, as I was myself one day, in being allowed to witness a fight that was taking place. I had taken a despatch to an officer, and perhaps conveyed some cheering news. Anyway, I had the chance to go to an eminence from which I could view the battle, and I went, and it was wonderful to see the waging of the contest over a vast tract of country—for in a war like this the ordinary fighter sees very little indeed of the battle. At this special point I had the rare chance of witnessing a fight as I suppose it is seen by the headquarters staff, and one of the strangest things about it was the little there was to be seen. There were puffs of smoke and tongues of flame—and the everlasting boom of guns; but not much more. Men are killed at long distances and out of sight in these days.
War is excessively wearing, and it was a blessed relief when a day came which was free from shells and bullets. That, indeed, was the calm after the storm. It came to us when we were snug in a farmyard about a mile away from a big town, with our motor-cars, cycles and horses so well under cover that the German aeroplanes did not find us out. Thankful indeed were we for the change, because the whole region where we were had been pitilessly bombarded, and there was nothing but devastation around us. Shells had done their work, and there was a special kind of bomb which fired anything it touched that was inflammable. A great many petrol discs, about the size of a shilling, were discharged by the Germans, and these things, once alight, did amazing mischief. Villages were obliterated, and in the big town where we were billeted the engineers were forced to blow up the surrounding houses to prevent the entire place from being destroyed.
The glad time came when our Division was relieved for a time. We got a bit of rest, and I crossed the Channel and came home for a short spell. One of the last things I saw before I left the front was the Prince of Wales making a tour. At that time he was about fifteen miles from the firing line.
What was the most noticeable thing that struck me when I came back over the Channel? Well, that is not easy to say, but I know that I particularly noticed the darkness of the London streets.