Another thing we did was to go round and shoot the poor horses that were hopelessly hurt--and a sorry task it was. One waggon we went to had five horses killed--only one horse was left out of the six which had been hooked in to march away in the mist of the morning; so we shot him and put him out of his misery. We had to shoot about twenty horses; but the rest were already dead, mostly blown to pieces and scattered over the field--a dreadful sight. When we had buried the dead, collected our wounded, and destroyed our helpless horses, the guns of our battery were limbered up on to sound waggon limbers, and a pair of horses were borrowed from each sub-section of I Battery to take them away. Everything else was left behind--waggons, accoutrements, clothing, caps, and so on, and the battery was taken to a little village about four miles from Compiègne, where we tried to snatch a bit of rest; but we had no chance of getting it, owing to the harassing pursuit of big bodies of Uhlans. From that time, until we reached the base, we wandered about as best we could, and managed to live on what we could get, which was not much. We were in a pretty sorry state, most of us without caps or jackets, and we obtained food from other units that we passed on the road. We were marching, dismounted, day and night, till we reached the rail-head, where I was transferred to the base and sent home. The sergeant-major and Osborne came home at the same time, and the sergeant-major is now a commissioned officer. So is Sergeant Nelson. After such a furious fight and all the hardships and sufferings of Mons and the retreat, it seems strange and unreal to be back in peaceful London. I don’t know what will happen to me, of course, but whatever comes I earnestly hope that some day I shall be able to go back to the little camp where we fought in the morning mist in such a deadly hail of shell, and look at the resting-places of the brave officers and men who gave their lives to save the battery they loved so well. CHAPTER XI SIXTEEN WEEKS OF FIGHTING [Indomitable cheerfulness and consistent courage are two of the outstanding features of the conduct of the British soldier in the war, and these qualities are finely shown in this story of some of the doings of the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, which has greatly distinguished itself and suffered heavily. Private Montgomery is a member of a fighting family, for he has a brother in the Royal Navy, two brothers in the Rifle Brigade, one in the Army Service Corps, and one in the Royal Army Medical Corps, so that there are six brothers serving their country in this time of urgent need.]