The infantry, expected at four o’clock, were late, and it became questionable whether it would be materially possible to hold out much longer, if the Germans attacked, taking into consideration the disproportion between our forces and those of the enemy.
Night had hardly come when an infernal fusillade broke out, and it lasted till daylight without the least slackening. It was exactly like an uninterrupted salvo fire, with the addition of the sharp, regular dry crackle of machine-guns. Thousands of projectiles struck our fragile barricade or passed, whistling, over our heads. We fired straight in front of us into the dark night, without knowing what we aimed at, except that our fire was directed towards the place whence this murderous storm of shot and shell came.
Constantly the same question ran from man to man: “Have the infantry come up?” for we knew that our lives depended on their arrival. Our orders were: “You will prevent the Germans passing till you have been relieved.”
We had only a handful of troopers, two hundred perhaps, to check the onslaught of a formidable mass of infantry. Unless our infantry came to our aid we would be cut up to a man; but the enemy should have to pass over our bodies.
Overcome with fatigue, and in spite of the thunder all round us, I fell asleep, suddenly, heavily, dreamlessly, in a little ditch which ran by the roadside. I don’t know when I awoke. The noise of the combat was dominated by a clamour still louder and more penetrating: a part of the village of Staden was on fire. A horde of Germans dashed into it, yelling “Hourraa!” A diabolical clamour rose to heaven, and yells and cries of bestial joy mounted with the thick smoke of the fires.
We learnt afterwards that they had charged empty barricades, a party of our men having evacuated the town an hour previously. A corporal of the 1st squadron, posted a little more to the left, told me he had seen them 200 yards off defiling in quick step “silhouetted like devils” against the glare of the fire.
A torpor seized me and I fell back into the ditch, overcome by sleep, and slept again till almost daylight. From that moment events moved with great rapidity. It must have been seven o’clock when the infantry at last arrived, fifteen hours late. We heard hurried footsteps. I turned and saw troops falling back in hot haste, being irresistibly outflanked by the enemy. They seemed to be pursued by assailants who were on their heels. I heard voices exclaiming, “It is pitiable to see fellows so up against it.” I said nothing, but, in my inner consciousness, I clearly understood that the supreme moment was come for many of us.