Chapter VIII: Grit and Guns

In no way has British grit shown itself more in this war than in the capture of German guns and in the defence of our own.

At Neri three artillerymen of the now famous L Battery R.H.A., inspired by their heroic commanding officer, continued to serve the only gun not silenced. The three heroes have been given the Victoria Cross.

Driver Grimes, of the Royal Field Artillery, gave the following account of what happened: "We were about two miles away when we got word to come to the relief of 'L' battery. When we arrived on the scene a terrible sight met our eyes. The battery had been blown to smithereens. Guns were smashed or overturned; some were untouched, but useless, because there was nobody to work them. Officers and men lay dead and wounded on every side. All the officers were killed, and one poor young fellow lay crushed beneath an overturned gun. Haystacks were blazing round about; the place was dense with smoke from shell fire. The Germans took them by surprise, and opened on them at no more than 600 yards' range. It was wonderful that anybody could have lived through such a hell--it was nothing else. But there were the sergeant-major and a couple of drivers working away like madmen at one of the guns, coats off, shirts torn open, and bleeding from minor wounds. They never looked round, but kept potting away for all they were worth. We were only in time. For almost immediately we came on the scene they fired their last remaining charge. The Germans cleared off as soon as we got agoing, and we never heard them that day again. I was one of those who assisted the three men back to the ambulance. 'Have you got a glass of water?' one of them asked. 'We got it pretty hot in there just now,' he added. 'You don't need to tell us that,' we replied, looking round at the great holes which the German shells had torn up in the ground on every side."

Captain Bradbury, R.H.A., had served a gun himself, and knocked out one German gun. He had one leg shot away; but fired off a round or two, until the other leg was taken off. A doctor came to help him, and all he asked from him was morphia so that the men might not hear him screaming.

In a charge at Toulin, Captain Grenfell, of the 9th Lancers, was hit in both legs, and had two fingers shot off at the same time. Almost as he received these wounds a couple of guns posted near were deprived of their servers, all of whom save one man were struck by bursting shrapnel. The horses for the guns had been placed under cover. "We'll get the guns back," cried Captain Grenfell, and at the head of a number of his men, and in spite of his wounds, he did manage to harness the guns up and get them away. He was then taken to hospital.

The final scene at a British battery during the retirement after the battle of Mons is thus described by Gunner B. Wiseman, of the Royal Field Artillery: "Our battery had fired their last round. The Germans were only three hundred yards away. The order was given, 'Retire. Every man for himself.' It was a splendid but awful sight to see horses, men, and guns racing for life, with shells bursting among them. The Germans rushed up, and I lay helpless. A German pointed his rifle at me to surrender. I refused, and was just on the point of being put out when a German officer saved me. He said, 'Englishman, brave fool.' He then dressed my wound, and gave me brandy and wine, and left me."

About fifty men of the Royal Berkshire Regiment were trying to save some guns at Soissons, and this is what happened in the words of a sergeant in a letter to his wife: "We had an order to abandon the guns, but our young officer said, 'No, boys, we will never let a German take a British gun.' Our chaps let up a cheer, and kept up a rapid fire. The guns had fired all their ammunition, but we kept on. Then the Staffords came up and reinforced us on our left flank. We then saw the gun teams coming up to fetch the guns."

The following is a letter of a major in the Royal Field Artillery, to his wife: "At last we came to the edge of the wood, and in front of us, about 200 yards away, was a little cup-shaped copse, and the enemy's trenches with machine-guns a little farther on. I felt sure this wood was full of Germans, as I had seen them go on earlier. I started to gallop for it, and the others followed. Suddenly about fifty Germans bolted out firing at us. I loosed off my revolver as fast as I could and ---- loosed off his rifle from the saddle. They must have thought we were a regiment of cavalry, for except a few they suddenly yelled and bolted. I stopped and dismounted my lot to fire at them to make sure they didn't change their minds. I held the horses, as I couldn't shoot them like that myself. I then suddenly saw there were more in the copse--so I mounted the party and galloped at it, yelling, with my revolver held out. As I came to it I saw it was full of Germans, so I yelled 'Hands up!' and pointed the revolver at them. They all chucked down their rifles and put their hands up. Three officers and over forty men to ten of us with six rifles and a revolver. I herded them away from their rifles and handed them over to the Welsh regiment behind us. I tore on with the trumpeter and the sergeant-major to the machine-guns. At that moment the enemy's shrapnel, the German infantry who'd got away, and our own howitzers, thinking we were hostile cavalry, opened fire on us. We couldn't move the beastly things, and it was too hot altogether, so we galloped back to the cup wood and they hailed shrapnel on us there. I waited for a lull, and mounted all my lot behind the bushes and made them sprint as I gave the word to gallop for cover to the woods where the Welsh company was. There I got ----, who understands them, and an infantryman who volunteered to help, and ---- and ran up to the maxims, and took out the breech mechanism of both and one of the belts and carried away one whole maxim. We couldn't manage the other. The Welsh asked what cavalry we were. I told them we were the staff of the ---- battery and they cheered us, but said we were mad. We got back very slowly on account of the gun and the men wild with excitement, and we have got the one gun complete and the mechanism and belt of the other. The funniest thing was the little trumpeter, who swept a German's helmet off his head and waved it in the air shouting, 'I've got it,' wild with excitement. He is an extraordinarily brave boy."

Lance-Corporal Bignell, Royal Berks, tells how he saw two R.F.A. drivers bring a gun out of action at Mons. Shells had been flying round the position, and the gunners had been killed, whereupon the two drivers went to rescue the gun. "It was a good quarter of a mile away, yet they led their horses calmly through a hail of shell to where the gun stood. Then one man held the horses while the other limbered up."

A Highlander, called Wilson, single-handed captured a German gun. Six Germans were in charge of the gun. Wilson picked off five with his rifle, bayoneted the sixth, and then tried to turn the gun on the enemy. Unfortunately it jammed, and an officer coming up helped him to destroy it. Wilson has been given the Victoria Cross.

Another Highlander had more of guns than he bargained for. In a night fight he lost his regiment, and was picked up by a battery of the Royal Field Artillery, who gave him a lift. But he did not rest long, for the kind gunners went into action ten minutes afterwards with their visitor sitting on one of their guns.

A private in the 1st Lincolns, who has returned home wounded, described how two companies of his regiment captured a battery of six German guns, one of which is now in London:

"During the German retreat the British were held up on a ridge by a battery. Two companies of us made a detour on the right, marched down a valley out of sight of the German gunners, and entered a wood on the enemy's left. The German battery, about 200 yards away, were busy with their work in front, not dreaming that we were on their flank. In extended order we took steady aim, and at the first round every man of the German battery fell. That was all we fired. Our artillery continued firing on the guns and smashed four. The other two were taken. We were afterwards commended."

In _The Times_ appeared the following account, gathered from letters received from brother officers at the front, of the charge in which Lieutenant Sir Archibald Gibson Craig gave his life:

"He was shot while leading his men to the attack of a German machine gun which was hidden in a wood. He located the gun and asked our second in command whether he might take his platoon (about twenty men) and try to capture the gun, which was doing a lot of damage to our troops at the time. The major gave his consent, and Gibson Craig went off to get the gun.... They crawled to the top of the hill and found themselves unexpectedly face to face with a large body of Germans. Our men fired a volley, and then the lieutenant drew his sword and rushed forward, ahead of his men, calling to them 'Charge, men! At them!' He got to within ten yards of them and then fell. By his gallant action he did a great deal to assist the general advance of the regiment, and, in fact, of the whole of the troops engaged. The remaining men silenced the gun, and brought their comrades--two killed and three wounded--back to the lines, two miles, under shell fire all the way, and not one was touched."

A brilliant little exploit was performed by one of our cavalry patrols. Coming suddenly upon a German machine-gun detachment, the subaltern in command at once gave the order to charge, with a result that some of the Germans were killed, the rest scattered, and the gun was captured and carried off.

One who was present described this "double event:"

"The sky turned pure black, and I knew we were going to have a heavy shower. But we had a 'double event'--a shower of bullets also. I could see we were attacked in the rear, and all was confusion for a few minutes, but our men soon woke up, and we got the order to fix bayonets. Down came the rain, and lightning and thunder. I stood for a moment to survey the scene. It was like something you would read about. We got the order to charge the guns, and you should have seen the Irish Guards, 3rd Coldstreams and 2nd Grenadiers rush on them like an avalanche. It was all over in ten minutes. The Germans stood dumbfounded. I shouldn't like to stand in front of that charge myself. Our men were drenched to the skin, but we didn't care, it only made us twice as wild. Such dare-devil pluck I was glad to see."

On one occasion, when the Connaught Rangers were charging with their bayonets to save guns of the Royal Field Artillery, the Germans put up a white flag and afterwards fired on the Irishmen. This got up the Connaught blood, and as one of the Rangers said, that "is nasty to be up agin." The Rangers left their mark on the treacherous foe and saved the guns.

At Charleroi another Irish regiment showed their grit in helping our cavalry to save guns. The horses were shot from under our men, and the Uhlans tried to capture our battery. Then the Munsters stuck to the guns. They dashed forward with fixed bayonets, put the Germans to flight, captured some of their horses, and all their guns.

"There's been a divil av a lot av talk about Irish disunion," says Mr. Dooley, "but if there's foightin' to be done it's the bhoys that'll let nobody else thread on the Union Jack."

A corporal of the Northamptonshire Regiment wrote: "The Germans, who seemed to have the position to a hair's breadth, sent shells shrieking and hissing around a battery of R.F.A. The horses got frantic and began prancing, kicking, and calling out in terror. The drivers, some of whom had dismounted in readiness for unlimbering, held on like grim death, but the animals were in such a state of terror that they could not be restrained, and at last they dashed off with the guns in the direction of the German lines. The drivers on the ground were knocked down, and one was run over by a carriage, but those who were mounted stuck to their posts and did all they could to restrain the mad horses. A party of new men with horses were brought out and dashed off in pursuit of the terrified animals. They caught them up soon and rode alongside to get hold of the runaways. It was no use, however, and now they came within range of more German guns, and the shells were bursting overhead, making the horses madder than ever. There was nothing for it but to shoot them, and this was done after some difficulty. Then it was necessary to take out the dead team and put the new one in, while German shells were dropping round. Half of the men were hit, but they meant to stick to their posts, and not all the Germans in the field could have driven them away. Just as they were getting the guns away a party of German infantry came on the scene, but by that time our battery had moved out to cover the withdrawal of the guns, and we gave the Germans as much as they could stand."

Simple heroism simply told is the keynote of a letter which Gunner Batey, of the R.G.A., has written to the parents of Gunner F.S. Mann. He says: "God bless your son. If it had not been for him I should not be alive to tell the tale. We had been fighting for three days across the Meuse, and I was severely wounded by shrapnel, and fell. We had to retreat, but we were determined to save the guns. I fell again, and our men drove off. Your son and I had fought side by side, and he missed me. The noble lad came back through fires of hell, and carried me to safety. He was wounded, but not dangerously. We are all proud of that boy; he is always in the thick of it. All over the line you could hear him shout, 'Lads, lads; the sooner we get through, the sooner we'll get home.'"