“In the excitement the enemy managed to get away two of their guns, but the remainder fell into our hands. The infantry and cavalry supporting the guns didn’t wait for the onslaught of our men, but bolted like mad, pursued by our cavalry, and galled by a heavy fire from our infantry and artillery, which quickly found the range. “We heard later that the Germans were in very great force, and had attacked in the hope of driving us back, and so uncovering the French left, but they got more than they bargained for. Their losses were terrible in what little of the fight we saw, and when our men captured the guns there was hardly a German left alive or unwounded. Altogether the fight lasted about seven hours, and when it was over our cavalry scouts reported that the enemy were in retreat.” A Coldstream Guardsman, writing of the fighting near the forest of Compiègne, compares the sight of the Germans issuing from the trees to a cup final crowd at the Crystal Palace. “You couldn’t miss them,” he said. “Our bullets ploughed into them, but still they came for us. I was well entrenched, and my rifle got so hot I could hardly hold it. I was wondering if I should have enough bullets when a pal shouted, ‘Up, Guards, and at ’em!’ The next second he was rolled over with a nasty knock on the shoulder. He jumped up and hissed, ‘Let me get at them!’ His language was a bit stronger than that. “When we really did get the order to get at them we made no mistake, I can tell you. They cringed at the bayonet, but those on our left wing tried to get round us, and after racing as hard as we could for quite three hundred yards we cut up nearly every man who did not run away.” Referring to the cavalry, he writes:—“You have read of the charge of the Light Brigade. It was nothing to our chaps. I saw two of our fellows who were unhorsed stand back to back and slash away with their swords, bringing down nine or ten of the panic-stricken devils. Then they got hold of the stirrup-straps of a horse without a rider, and got out of the _mêlée_. This kind of thing was going on all day. “In the afternoon I thought we should all get bowled over, as they came for us again in their big numbers. Where they came from, goodness knows; but as we could not stop them with bullets they had another taste of the bayonet. My captain, a fine fellow, was near to me, and as he fetched them down he shouted, ‘Give them socks, my lads!’ How many were killed and wounded I don’t know; but the field was covered with them.” Private Walter Morton, of the 1st Battalion Black Watch, gave a description of a magnificent charge by his regiment at St. Quentin to the _Scotsman_. Private Morton, who is only 19 years of age, belongs to Camelon, Falkirk:—