One of the Black Watch wrote: "We have had a fiendish week of fighting around A----. We had to force our way step by step. Every inch we marched was coloured red with the blood of our men and the Germans. It was like passing through a graveyard where an earthquake had turned up all the corpses and left them lying above ground. As we picked our way through the long lane of dead, that never seemed to have any turning, we noticed among them now and then wounded men, who begged hard for water or some assistance in doing up their bandages. It was pitiful, and we were so helpless." Another soldier wrote: "You can always tell the Germans who have never been in action against us before. The ones who know what to expect come up very gingerly, like men sneaking into the vestry of a church to rob the collection boxes. The new hands come across in a fine, jaunty way until they get a volley into them, and then they stare up at the sky to see who's throwing things at them. That's the ones who are able to look up, for some of them are done for, and have looked at the sky for the last time. We are showing the Germans that there are a few goods marked 'Made in England.' Our officers are the real goods, the very best. If the Germans had been worth their house-room they would have put an end to the whole of us at the battle of Mons. They came on like a swarm of bees, and we did enjoy it. It was like firing at a mountain; you could not miss it. Sorry I can't stop to write more. We are going to business at 7 p.m. ('Where's my gun?') What would you like out of the crown jewels in Berlin? That's where we are bound for." Some soldiers who had lost their regiments gave this description of hiding from the Germans: "When night came we endeavoured to escape from our perilous position, and just outside the door we found a German sentry. We passed quite close to him, but didn't stop to say 'Good-night.' How we did it I can't for the life of me tell, but we did it, and then made off as we thought towards the British lines, but to our disgust found we were going right into the German lines. We decided, therefore, to anchor there for the night and get away in the morning. We found this was the German Headquarters Staff, so that we can say we dined with the German generals that night, the only difference being that they were inside and we were outside; they were having wines, etc., and we had swedes and no etc." A soldier said of a battle that it was "like a display of fireworks at the Crystal Palace with the wounded and dead left out. Last week we got shrapnel for breakfast, dinner, and tea, but the enemy might have saved himself the trouble of dishing out those doses, as they were absolutely ineffective."