Told in gallant deeds : $b A child's history of the warLowndes, Marie Belloc
History
Told in gallant deeds : $b A child's history of the war
Lowndes, Marie Belloc
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile literature
His death was a singularly heroic one, and in wonderful keeping with
what we know of his life. A wounded corporal of his regiment, who was
near him when he fell, says that “Lieutenant Noel, despite the fact that
he was hit in or near his left eye by a shot that broke the half of his
field-glasses, promptly picked up his glasses again, and, finding the
right half of them still workable, continued to direct the fire of his
platoon with his right eye, until a few minutes later he was killed by a
shot in his left temple.”
Not the British only fought at Cambrai; deeds of unparalleled valour
were done by the French, and also by France’s Arab troops, the Turcos.
It was at Cambrai that the Turcos first saw fire. They were singled out,
five hundred of them, to do a desperate piece of work on which the fate
of thousands of men depended.
Straining as if at a leash, they waited for the order to advance. At
last it came. They swung round and faced the foe. Onward they went,
right up to the guns, and against what seemed to be an impregnable line
of trenches.
Of the five hundred, only twelve survived; of the twelve, only one was
unwounded. But the enemy’s guns were silenced, and the Germans had fled
from their trenches. The men who fell were buried shoulder to shoulder
as they fought.
The French peasant women, as we have seen, are wonderfully brave in the
matter of going under fire. One of these showed herself possessed of a
quieter type of courage, but courage nevertheless, during the retreat.
Hear the tale as told by a British officer:
“After the Battle of Mons we were billeted at a large farmhouse, the
occupants of which did not seem very pleased to see us. We had not
touched any eatables for several hours, and I made the housewife
understand that we wanted some food. She looked at us in a way which was
not altogether an expression of friendliness, and, pointing at the
table, round which a number of workingmen were gathered, to whom she was
serving their meals, she said, ‘Après les ouvriers.’—‘After my
work-people.’
“We waited patiently till the men had finished their meal, and then
asked once more for food. But the woman merely remarked, ‘Après nous.’
‘After us.’ And she and her husband subsequently prepared to eat their
supper. It is rather trying to see somebody making an attack on a hearty
meal while one has not tasted any food for a long time. So I demanded,
in the name of the King, that we should be supplied with foodstuff
immediately, the more so that the woman seemed so unwilling to grant our
wishes. The only answer she made was that, if we were in want of food,
we should have to look for it ourselves and try to prepare it.
“The situation was rather awkward, and I was wondering why these French
peasantry were so extremely unkind towards British soldiers!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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