As soon as we got into touch with the Germans--and that was at Mons--they never left us alone. We had a hot time with them, but we gave them a hotter. Mons was a terrible experience, especially to men going straight into action for the first time, and so furious was the artillery duel that at its height some of the British and German shells actually struck each other in the air. In less than an hour we fired nearly six hundred rounds--the full number carried by a battery of six guns. But I must not talk of Mons; I will get to the neighbourhood of Compiègne, and tell of the fight that was sprung on the battery and left only three survivors.
All through the retreat we had been fighting heavily, and throughout the day on August 31st we fought till four o’clock in the afternoon; then we were ordered to retire to Compiègne. It was a long march, and when we got to Nery, near Compiègne, early in the evening, both horses and men were utterly exhausted and very hungry. As soon as we got in we gave the horses some food--with the mounted man the horse always comes first--and made ourselves as comfortable as possible.
Outposts were put out by the officers, and the cavalry who were with us, the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays), were in a small field on the side of a road which was opposite to us. That road was really a deep cutting, and I want you to bear it in mind, because it largely proved the salvation of the few survivors of the battery at the end of the fight. For the rest, the country was just of the sort you can see in many places in England--peaceful, fertile and prosperous, with farms dotted about, but nobody left on them, for the warning had been given that the German hordes were marching, and the people had fled in terror.
Having made all our dispositions, we went to sleep, and rested till half-past three in the morning, when we were roused and told to get ready to march at a moment’s notice.
The darkness seemed to hang about more than usual, and the morning was very misty; but we did not pay much attention to that, and we breakfasted and fed the horses. We expected to be off again, but the battery was ordered to stand fast until further notice.
In war-time never a moment is wasted, and Sergeant-Major Dorrell thought that this would be a good opportunity to water the horses, so he ordered the right half-battery to water, and the horses were taken behind a sugar factory which was a little distance away. The horses were watered and brought back and hooked into the guns and waggons; then the left half-battery went to water.