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
Time went on. The horses got very restless, and a stampede was feared.
Had that happened all would have been lost. But it did not happen, and
at last day broke. No attack had been delivered, and it was clear that
the enemy had gone to the right or left of the village, pressing onward
in the belief that the British convoy was ahead.
Yet another exciting incident, which shows the kind of adventures the
Army Service Corps takes as being all part of its day’s work.
A convoy had been drawn up some way from the firing line, and in the
early morning rations were just about to be issued to a brigade of
artillery who were going into action at 3 A.M., when the word went forth
that the convoy was being quietly surrounded by a troop of German
cavalry.
At once it was arranged that if it could not be got away it must be
burnt. But before doing that the officers resolved to make a push for
it.
Lorries and horses started off at top speed till they got to a railway
bridge. There all the transport, with the exception of thirty motor
lorries, passed over in safety. Another determined effort was made, and
out of the thirty, twenty-eight got over safely. Then the bridge was
blown up. A moment later the remaining two lorries were in the hands of
the Germans, together with two officers and eight men, who were, we may
suppose, taken prisoners.
A wonderful stand was also made by our retreating troops at Tournai,
when 700 British soldiers resisted 5000 Uhlans. They stood their ground
to a man, till of the 700 less than half remained. Even then there was
no panic. Calmly, harassing their pursuers with a murderous fire, “all
that was left of them” retreated with the wounded, their convoy intact.
As for the guns, though some were lost, many more were put out of
action. The enemy showed reckless bravery, hurling themselves on to the
very muzzles of the British field guns.
A soldier always admires a brave man, no matter what his uniform is.
Here is a fine tribute paid by a wounded British artilleryman to the
enemy:
“The grandest thing I saw out there was the fight of a handful of good
fighting men in German uniforms. These chaps were the last of a regiment
to cross a stream under fiendish rifle and artillery fire.
“They were hotly pursued by French cavalry and infantry, and when they
saw that it was all up the remnant made for a little hill and gathered
round the regimental flag to fight to the last. The French closed round
them, and called on them to surrender, but not they! They stood there
back to back until the last man went down with the flag in his grasp and
a dozen bullet wounds in his body.
“Then the flag was captured by the French, but there was no shouting
over the victory, and every soldier who passed that way and knew the
story of those brave chaps bared his head to the memory of brave men.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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