I was pleased with my troop, under bad fire. They used the most awful language, talking quite quietly, and laughing all the time, even after the men were knocked over within a yard of them. I longed to be able to say that I liked it, after all one has heard about being under fire for the first time. But it is beastly. I pretended to myself for a bit that I like it, but it was no good. But when one acknowledged that it was beastly, one became all right again and cool.
After the firing had slackened we advanced again a bit, into the next group of houses, the edge of the village proper. I can't tell you how muddling it is. We did not know which was our front, we did not know if our own troops had come round us on the flanks, or whether they had stopped behind and were firing into us. And besides, a lot of German snipers were left in the houses we had come through, and every now and then bullets came singing by from God knows where. Four of us were talking in the road when about a dozen bullets came with a whistle. We all dived for the nearest door, and fell over each other, yelling with laughter. —— said, "I have a bullet through my new Sandon twillette breeches." We looked, and he had; it had gone clean through. He didn't tell us till two days after that it had gone through him too; but there it was, like the holes you make to blow an egg, only about 4 inches apart.
We stopped about two hours. Then the cavalry regiment on our left retired. Then we saw a lot of Germans among the fires they had lit (they set the houses on fire to mark their line of advance.) They were running from house to house. We were told not to fire, for fear of our own people on the other side. Then came a lot of them, shouting and singing and advancing down the street, through the burning houses. One felt a peculiar hatred for them. We heard afterward that there was a division of infantry, at first we thought there were only a few patrols.
We retired about two miles and dismounted for action. Soon they began to come up from three sides, and we retired again. They were pretty close, advancing higgledy-piggledy across the fields and firing. They shot abominably (nothing like the morning, from the houses, when they had all the ranges marked to a yard). We lost only about 20 horses, no men killed. "Hellfire Herbert" got his horse shot under him when they were within about 200 yards. He was next troop in front of me. He suddenly got complete "fou-rires" when he saw me. I got him a spare horse, and he was still laughing, and cursing them with a sort of triumph. We only trotted away. A man in my troop kept touching his cap to the Germans, saying "Third-class shots, third-class shots."
The next day we went forward to another places and intrenched against a very big German force, but we only had to face their guns. Poor —— was killed. They pushed us pretty hard back to our infantry. We were supposed to have done well.
Since then we have been doing infantry work in the trenches. We have been out of work in our trenches; only shrapnel and snipers. Some one described this war as "Months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror." It is sad that it is such a bad country for cavalry. Cavalry work here against far superior forces of infantry, like we had the other day, is not good enough. The Germans are dashing good at that house-to-house fighting business.
It is horrible having to leave one's horses; it feels like leaving half oneself behind, and one feels the dual responsibility all the time. I hope we get them on the run soon, then will come our chance. They have been having terrific fighting on the line on each side of us, and it has gone well.
I adore war. It is like a big picnic without the objectlessness of a picnic. I've never been so well or so happy. Nobody grumbles at one for being dirty. I've only had my boots off once in the last ten days, and only washed twice. We are up and standing to our rifles at 5 A.M. when doing this infantry work, and saddled up by 4:30 A.M. when with our horses. Our poor horses don't get their saddles off when we are in trenches.
The dogs and cats left in the deserted villages are piteous, and the wretched inhabitants trekking away with great bundles and children in their hands.
I can't make out what has happened to the Battle of the Aisne; it seems to have got tired and died.