We got into the trenches at about four-thirty on the morning of the 26th, and remained in them for something like twelve hours, and during that time we took part in what was probably the fiercest battle that had ever been fought up to that time, though there was worse to follow in the Ypres region. We were rather unlucky, as it happened, because we were forced to lie in the trenches and watch the other regiments and our artillery shelling the enemy without our being able to fire a shot, for we were so placed that we could not do anything effective against the enemy just then.
The Yorkshire Light Infantry retired, and then came the order for the West Kents to go. It was an order that needed the greatest care and courage to carry out, but it had been given, and, of course, the West Kents always do just what they are told to do. We did so now, with the result, I am proud to say, that we carried out Colonel Martyn’s command to the letter.
“Don’t get excited in any way,” he said. “Just go off as if you were on battalion parade.”
And we did, and the colonel showed us how to do it, for he walked off just as he might have walked off the barrack square, though all the time we were under heavy shell fire and our men were falling. We lost a fair number, but not many, considering the nature of the fire upon us.
We got as far as St. Quentin, which is a big town, trying to find out where our regiment had gone; but we got cold comfort, for a man came up and said: “It’s no good going in there. The town’s surrounded. The best thing you can do is to put down your arms and surrender.”
We didn’t relish the surrender suggestion, and we started to make inquiries. A sergeant who spoke French went up to a gendarme who was at the side of the railway station, and asked him if it was true that the town was surrounded.
The gendarme replied that he didn’t know, but he believed the statement was true; anyway he advised us to remain where we were.
Not satisfied with that, about half a dozen of us went up to a French cavalry officer and put the question to him.
The cavalry officer, like the gendarme, said he didn’t know, but told us that the best thing we could do was to go on to a place, which he named, about eight miles away, and off we went; but before we reached it we came across a cavalry division, and learned that it was not safe to go farther. Again we were advised to remain where we were, and we did for the time being.