In five days we retired from Mons to Noyon, a distance of about 130 miles, fighting day and night, with no proper meals. We had to live on the country. I ate nothing but fruit and turnips. At last I was hit by a piece of shrapnel, which has taken away the use of the toes of my right foot and fractured three or four small bones. At the time it simply felt like a scald, and I marched seven miles before I found my foot was bleeding. Whilst trying to close the men up I suffered a second accident to my foot, a wagon-wheel passing over it owing to a skid: _Colour-Sergeant Barling_. Outnumbered 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. 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: _A Private of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers_. “The Old British Way” They have a trick of throwing masses of cavalry at our weakest infantry when they are either advancing in an exposed position or in retreat. They tried it on as often as they could, but what they don’t seem able to get over is the quick way in which the smallest party of our infantry will turn round and give them the bayonet. At first they came on all swagger, thinking they could cut our men down, but when they began to see what our chaps were up to they weren’t so keen on keeping it up. I have seen them coming on with great bluster and bounce until the order “Prepare to receive cavalry” was carried out in the old British way, and then they took to their heels as fast as their horses would carry them: _A Corporal of the South Lancashire Regiment_. Covered with Straw News reached our brigade that some of the Germans were making a stand not far in front of us. We at once scattered ourselves in the fields, and then advanced in extended formation until we could see them nicely. We fired a few rounds into them, and they beat a hasty retreat, but not before they had killed seven and wounded twelve. Our colonel was the first man shot, and he died the next morning. After the dead had been collected and the wounded attended to we again got on the move, and I shall never forget how I felt as I passed my dead comrades on the road. They had been laid by the roadside, and their faces covered with straw: _Bandsman T. Woodward, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment_. Nothing to be Seen