The British soldier : $b his courage and humourHardy, E. J. (Edward John)
History
The British soldier : $b his courage and humour
Hardy, E. J. (Edward John)
World War, 1914-1918
"Sir, these are a few of the instances which made your son liked by
all his men. The last day he was alive we had got a cup of tea in the
trenches, and we asked him to have a drink. He said, 'No. Drink it
yourselves; you are in want of it.' And then with a smile, he added,
'We have to hold the trenches to-day.' Again, at Mons, we had been
fighting all day, and someone brought a sack of pears and two loaves of
bread. Lieutenant Wynn accepted only one pear and a very little bread.
We noticed this. I had a small bottle of pickles in my haversack and
asked him to have some. But it was the usual answer: 'You require them
yourselves.' Our regiment was holding the first line of trenches, and
Lieutenant Wynn was told to hold the right of the company. Word was
passed down to see if Lieutenant Wynn was all right, and I was just
putting up my head when they hit me, and I heard from a neighbour that
Lieutenant Wynn was hit through the eye and died instantly. He died
doing his duty, and like the officer and gentleman he was."
Officers and men were always on the watch to help each other. At the
battle of Mons an officer stood over the body of a private who had
previously saved his life until he had fired his last shot from his
revolver, and then fell seriously wounded. A private soldier carried
on his back for 800 yards a young subaltern, who afterwards died in
hospital.
Trooper O'Brien, of the 3rd Dragoons, told in a letter to his wife how
Captain Wright, of his squadron, crept out under a heavy artillery and
rifle fire to try and bring in two wounded men. "He brought one back
to the trench and bandaged up and placed in safety the other. He is a
lovely man, and I and every other man in my squadron would follow him
anywhere to the death."
A private wrote: "Officers seem to be mainly concerned about the safety
of their men, and indifferent to the risks they take upon themselves.
Lieutenant Amos rescued a wounded man under heavy fire. Several of us
volunteered to do it, but the lieutenant would not hear of anybody else
taking the risk."
Private R. Toomey, Royal Army Medical Corps, told of an officer of the
Royal Irish shouting at the top of his voice, "Give them hell, boys,
give them hell!" He had been wounded in the back by a lump of shrapnel,
but, said Toomey, "It was a treat to hear him shouting."
Because of a foolish affair in Ulster, Ireland, our Army not so long
ago was said to be insubordinate. What answer has the war given to
this? It has shown that officers and men never worked better together,
and that the educated, temperate soldier of the present fights just as
well as did his predecessor, whose mind was too uncultivated to realise
danger, and who was not unfrequently blinded to it by drink.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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