Transport work, as a rule, was very uncomfortable, because it was mostly done at night, when the roads were very dark, and we had to do as best we could without lights. Anything like an ammunition or supply column was a particular mark for the Germans, and whenever they got the chance they would do their best to find us out; and a favourite way of doing this was to fire a few shots in one place and a few in another, in the hope that we should be drawn and reveal our position. But we didn’t give the show away quite so easily as that.
I had many opportunities of seeing the fine work which was done by our armoured trains, and I saw something of the performances of the aeroplanes. I witnessed several air fights, but there was not really a lot to see, because there was so much swift manœuvring. There was plenty of firing at the aircraft, but they are most difficult things to hit. One of the German aeroplanes dropped a bomb on Ypres. It fell on a doctor’s house near the town station and exploded, but it did not do any great amount of mischief. It broke the front door and shattered the windows and knocked the place about, but I fancy that it did not hurt or kill anybody.
What was the finest sight I saw while I was at the front? Well, I think the best thing I ever saw was the way some of our lancers scattered a far superior body of Uhlans and made them fly. That was on the retirement from Mons. It was a very bad time, and there were some fearful sights, for the roads leading from the town were crowded with fleeing women and children. In any case it was bad enough to get along the road, but it was infinitely worse to make our way along through the crowds of refugees with our motor-lorries, especially in view of what we carried. To make matters worse, we had got on the wrong road, and it was necessary to turn back. To do this we had to turn round, and, as there were eighty cars, I need not tell you what a business that meant, especially with the enemy harassing us, and I dare say fondly thinking that they had us in a proper grip. The Germans were quite close to us, and firing, and we were ordered to get down and defend the cars. The road at this point was very narrow, and it seemed as if we were trapped, though we were covered by cavalry.
The country thereabouts did not seem very favourable for cavalry work, but it was all right from the point of view of the Uhlans, who, from their horses, potted at us from the brow of the hill on which they stood. The weather was miserable, dull, and it was raining, and, altogether, it was not an exhilarating business. The Uhlans seemed to be having it all their own way; then the scene changed like magic, and that was when the gallant 9th Lancers appeared, to our unspeakable joy. I can claim to understand something in a modest way about cavalry, as an old Imperial Yeoman, and I do know that there was no finer sight ever seen than the spectacle of those splendid fellows of the 9th, who, without any sound of trumpet or any noise, came up and charged the Uhlans. One body of Uhlans was on the brow, two more bodies were in a wood. But these two did not take any active part in the fighting; they seemed to wait till their comrades on the brow had paved the way with us, so that they could swoop down. But the Uhlans did not get a chance to swoop, though they were three to one against our lancers.
Jumping a ditch and galloping across the country, our cavalry were after the Uhlans like the wind. But the Uhlans never stopped to face the lance; they vanished over the brow of the hill, and the fellows who were watching and waiting in the wood vanished, too. They bolted, and must have been thankful to get out of it. All they knew, probably, was that our men came along a road in the wood till they got to a clear part, and that through that opening the 9th were on them like a flash, without firing a shot. They managed to get in amongst the first line of the Germans with the lance and empty some of the saddles, while they themselves had only one or two men bowled over.
I had a splendid view of this brilliant little affair—I should think there were not more than 120 of the 9th—and I shall never forget the way in which the lancers went for the enemy, nor the swiftness with which the boasted Uhlans scuttled off behind the brow. It was an uncommonly fine piece of work, and it saved our column.
The Uhlans had another shot at us two or three days later. They were at quite close range, not more than four or five hundred yards away, but we managed to keep them off and go about our business, which was to reach the Marne and the Aisne, and then start back. We had about a month on the Aisne without making much progress, though our troops were hard at it all the time.
I had got out of Ypres—thankful to go—and had gone towards another town. It was about midday, and we had halted. The hot weather had gone away, and the cold had come. I was walking up and down to keep myself warm. Shells were falling and bursting, as usual, but I did not pay much attention to them. At last one burst about fifty yards away, and a fragment struck me and knocked me round, after which I fell. At first I thought I had been struck by a stone or a brick which somebody had thrown, and it was not for some time that I realised that I had been wounded in the thigh by a piece of shell. I was sent to England in due course, and here I am, in a most comfortable hospital at the seaside, ready to leave for home in two or three days.
My own experience with regard to the wound is not uncommon. It is not easy to say how you have been hit, and I have known men who have been shot through the body and have been quite unable to say whether the bullet went in at the front or the back.