_Letter 57.--From a Manchester soldier, in a French hospital:_
There was a young French girl helping to bandage us up. How she stood it I don’t know. There were some awful sights, but she never quailed--just a sweet, sad smile for everyone. If ever anyone deserved a front seat in Heaven, this young angel does. God bless her. She has the prayers and the love of the remnants of our division. All the French people are wonderfully generous. They gave us anything and everything. You simply cannot help loving them, especially the children.
_Letter 58.--From Private A. McGillivray, a Highlander, to his mother:_
Of my company only 10 were unhit. I saw a handful of Irishmen throw themselves in front of a regiment of cavalry who were trying to cut off a battery of horse artillery. It was one of the finest deeds I ever saw. Not one of the poor lads got away alive, but they made the German devils pay in kind, and, anyhow, the artillery got away to account for many more Germans. Every man of us made a vow to avenge the fallen Irishmen, and if the German cavalrymen concerned were made the targets of every British rifleman and gunner they had themselves to thank. Later they were fully avenged by their own comrades, who lay in wait for the German cavalrymen. The Irish lads went at them with the bayonet when they least expected it, and the Germans were a sorry sight. Some of them howled for mercy, but I don’t think they got it. In war mercy is only for the merciful.
_Letter 59.--From Private W. Bell, of the South Lancashire Regiment, to his wife:_
I shall never forget this lot. Men fell dead just like sheep. Our regiment was first in the firing line, and we were simply cut up. Very few escaped, so I think I was very lucky, for I was nearly half-a-mile creeping over nothing but dead men. In the trenches, bullets and shells came down on us like rain. We even had to lift dead men up and get under them for safety.
When we got the order to retire an officer was just giving the order to charge when he was struck dead, and it is a good job we didn’t charge, or we would have all been killed. I passed a lot of my chums dead, but I didn’t see Fred Atkinson (a friend of the family).
Have you ever seen a little man fighting a great, big, hulking giant who keeps on forcing the little chap about the place until the giant tires himself out, and then the little one, who has kept his wind, knocks him over? That’s how the fighting round here strikes me. We are dancing about round the big German army, but our turn will come.