“Lie still, boys, and let them come!” our officers shouted.
We lay perfectly quiet, and let the Germans rush on till they were almost upon us; then the sharp order came: “Ten rounds rapid fire!”
There was an absolute fusillade, and the ten rounds were fired in less than a minute, and simply struck the Germans down. Their dead and wounded were lying thick in the roadway and on the pavements when we sprang up and were after the survivors with the bayonet. This time we chased them up to the very muzzles of the guns, where we had a splendid bit of luck. The German gunners flew when they saw us, and we were on top of them and on top of the infantry. We dashed straight through the batteries, the enemy flying before the bayonet, and there, in the moonlight, which was almost as strong as daylight, I accounted for two of them with my own steel.
For fully three miles that furious chase was kept up, the Germans flying in all directions. It was a long and fierce fight in the moonlight, but at the end of it Coulommiers was ours, and six batteries of German guns and a thousand prisoners were ours, too, to say nothing of the killed and wounded.
You might have thought that enough had been done, but we had scarcely settled down to have a little drop of something hot to drink--and we needed it badly--when the cry arose, “Come on, boys; let’s get after them again!” We emptied our canteens, which were full of hot coffee and rum, and were after the Germans again as hard as we could go. By daylight we had put the finish on them at Coulommiers. We were well pleased, too, with the fine haul of guns.
We had fought fiercely, and had not spared the Germans--no one could have any mercy on them who saw the proofs, as we had seen them, of their barbarities. When we advanced into Coulommiers we saw the bodies of two little girls who had been murdered and mutilated in a shocking manner. There were in that locality alone scores of such atrocities committed by the brutes who came from the land of “culture” and are being driven back to it.
I had a fair innings at the Marne, and saw a good deal of the beginning of the fight which started the Germans on the run. I had two days and nights of it; then I was bowled out by a piece of shell which struck me on the thigh and went off with a piece of flesh. I felt as if a brick had hit me, and when I saw the blood I thought it was all up with me. The doctor told me that this might easily have happened if the wound had been a little deeper. He was Lieutenant Huggin, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, a kind and brave gentleman, who was soon afterwards killed while doing his duty under fire. He was mentioned in despatches, with other officers who did so much. I remember one of them, a field officer of the Coldstreamers, during a very hot fight standing with his hands in his pockets watching to see how things were going, and saying, “Men, this is beautiful! We shall soon be on the other side of the river.”