“It’s all right, lads! There’s nothing much the matter with me! Carry on!”
Oh, yes! There were some fine cool things done on that great Sunday when the Germans were like bees in front of us in the turnip-fields at Mons, and we were settling down into our stride.
Our section sergeant, Spence, when the firing was fiercest, popped up to take a shot, which is always a risky thing to do, because a bullet is so much swifter than a man’s movements. The sergeant fired, and the instant he had done so he fell back into the trench, saying, “I believe they’ve got me now!” But they hadn’t. He was taken to hospital, and it was found that a bullet had come and so cleanly grazed his head--on the left side, like this--that the hair was cut away in a little path, just like a big parting, as if it had been shaved. It was touch and go with death, the closest thing you could possibly see; but, luckily, the sergeant was all right, and he made no commotion about his narrow shave.
There was a gallant young officer and brave gentleman of the Gordons--Lieutenant Richmond--who had been doing his duty nobly throughout that Sunday afternoon.
Dusk was falling, and Lieutenant Richmond made his way out of the trench and over the open ground, crawling, to try and learn something about the Germans. He was crawling back--that is the only way in such a merciless fire--and was only about three yards from the trench when he rose up and was going to make a final dash for it. Just as he rose, a bullet struck him in the back and came out through his heart--and killed him straight away. He was in my trench, and I saw this happen quite clearly. It was such sights as that which made the Gordons all the more resolved to carry on and mow the Germans down as hard as they could--the Germans who seemed to be for ever rushing at us from the turnip-fields in front and never getting any nearer than their own barriers of dead.
I never thought it possible that such a hell of fire could be known as that which we endured and made at Mons. There was the ceaseless crackle of the rifles on both sides, with the everlasting explosions of the guns and the frightful bursting of the shells. They were particularly horrible when they burst on the cobbled road close by--as hundreds did--so near to us that it seemed as if we were certain to be shattered to pieces by the fragments of shrapnel which did so much mischief and killed so many men and horses, to say nothing of the gaping wounds they inflicted on the troops and the poor dumb beasts.