I think I shall never forget that night as long as I live. We all had wonderful escapes, with shrapnel shell bursting continuously, high explosive shells, also; houses burning and falling down from the shell fire; the intermittent rifle fire, with every now and then furious bursts of fire when the Germans attacked. Our biggest fight so far took place at Landrecies. The Germans attacked us in the town furiously. They brought their guns to within fifty yards of us in the dark on the road, and opened point-blank fire. Our gunners brought up a gun by hand, as no horse could have lived, and knocked at least one of the German guns out first shot. This all at about sixty yards. Notwithstanding the fury of the engagement, the enemy found opportunities to outrage the non-combatants for their own ends. A private in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers related that between Mons and Cambrai he had his glengarry torn to shreds with shrapnel. Before he was hit he saw from 600 yards’ range Belgian women tied to the German guns, and this prevented the Coldstream Guards returning the German fire as they retreated in the neighbourhood of Cambrai. The following is the description of another eye-witness:— It was on August 26 that we suffered most. Our little lot was waiting for the Germans in a turnip field. We were lying down, and on they came. We let fly, and numbers of them went down. They cracked at us then with their machine guns, and did us a good deal of damage. We were obliged to retire, but there was an off-and-on fight for at least twelve hours. We would get cover and have a smack at ’em, and with their great numbers and our good shooting we did tumble them over. But, my goodness, the numbers did keep coming on, and we had to go back. Our fellows were falling here and there, principally as results of their machine guns, which were doing nearly all the damage. We did not worry a lot about their rifle fire, which was faulty; but we got them every time. It was the time that we were having a great slap at a bunch of them that we were really tried. We advanced, and pushed them back, but we were outnumbered again. We fell back, and a crush of us got separated from the rest. There were about sixteen of us, and we found ourselves beyond the German lines. In the morning it was “cut and run for it,” for everywhere there were Germans about. We got to a village and hid, the French people taking every care of us. We concealed our arms, and changed our khaki uniforms for any clothes that we could get. In the day-time we hid in barns, under haystacks, or in the homes of French villagers, who were most kind to us. At Landrecies the Coldstream Guards put up a heroic defence, said a correspondent to the _Daily Telegraph_, when suddenly attacked by the Germans.