When I got to the ambulance wagons I found they were mostly full with wounded who were in a far worse plight than I was. So I went along with the column, and a motor lorry came by and I got a lift to St. Quentin.
“So awful was the fighting that it is wonderful that anybody ever came out of it alive. I have no idea how we did come through,” said a wounded corporal of the Royal Engineers.
The corporal and his comrades were ordered to build a pontoon bridge over the Mons Canal. This work was begun early on the Sunday morning, August 23, in the face of a murderous rifle and shell fire. Gradually the bridge was pushed over, until it was almost within touch of the bank held by the enemy. Man after man of the British Engineers was hit, but still the rest stuck to their task, heedless of the rain of missiles all around.
Late in the afternoon the corporal was standing in the water assisting in the construction, when a shrapnel shell wounded him in the right arm. He made for the bank, only to find that his boots, which he had removed, had disappeared. He bound up his wounded arm with his handkerchief, and soon afterwards work on the bridge was abandoned.
Orders were given to get to cover the best way possible, and to wait until darkness fell. Then our troops fell back owing to the overwhelming numbers of the Germans. The corporal removed his putties, bound them round his feet, and started to retire. In the darkness, however, he lost the main body of the British, and wandered away to the west.
After a while he met a wounded Gordon Highlander, who had had his teeth shot away, and was also lost. The Highlander bound up the Engineer’s arm with his first field dressing, and the two men snatched what sleep they could under a hedge. Their breakfast next morning was a raw swede, pulled up from one of the fields.
Throughout that day they trudged on and on through a deserted country, but as night fell they came to some cottages scattered on the roadside. The inhabitants, recognising them as British, welcomed the wanderers, and gave them a good meal of bread and butter, cheese, and rabbit. They also allowed the soldiers to sleep there that night, and early in the morning directed them to Boussu, a town some miles further on in the direction of Lille.