I do not want to say too much about the villagers--it is too sad and makes one too savage; but I will tell of one incident I saw. An old man was running away, to try and get out of danger, when he was hit in the stomach. I saw him fall, and I know that he bled to death. Think of that--an absolutely innocent and inoffensive old man who had done nothing whatever to harm the brigands who were over-running Belgium!
Just about midnight we got the order to retire. We joined the survivors of the 8th Brigade and began a march which lasted nearly all night. We were weary and worn, but as right in spirit as ever, and didn’t want to retire. There was no help for it, however, and the Great Retreat began. Everything that the Red Cross men could do had been done for the wounded; but there were some who had to be left, as well as the dead.
It was fearfully hot, and we were thankful indeed when we were able to lie down in a field and get about two hours’ sleep--the sleep that you might suppose a log has.
When we awoke it was not to music of birds, but of shrapnel; for the Germans were following us and began to fire on us as soon as we started to retire again. Hour after hour we went on, feeling pretty bad at having to retreat; but a bit cheered when, at about two o’clock on the Monday afternoon, we began to dig trenches again. We had the field-gunners behind us once more, and joyous music it was to hear their shells screaming over our heads.
It was about dinner-time on the Monday when we had one of the most thrilling experiences of the whole fight--one of the extraordinary incidents that have become part and parcel of a modern battle, although only a very few years ago they were looked upon as mad fancies or wild dreams. We were marching along a road when we sighted a German aeroplane--a bird-like-looking thing in the sky. It was keeping watch on us, and signalling our position to the main German body. It gave the position, and the Germans promptly gave us some shells. The thing was most dangerous and unpleasant; but the German airman was not to have it all his own way.
Two of our own aeroplanes spotted him and went for him, just like immense birds--the whole business might have been carried out by living creatures of the air--and there was as fine a fight in the air as you could hope to see on land--firing and swift manœuvring with the object of killing and destroying, and both sides showing amazing pluck and skill. It was an uncommonly exciting spectacle, and it became all the more thrilling when we opened fire with our rifles.