Chapter IX: Gallantry of Individuals

An Irish Fusilier regiment was in a dangerous position and a messenger was wanted to bring to the men an order to retire. Who would go? Every man offered himself, though they knew that they would have to cross an open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed for the honour, and the first man who started with the message had not gone more than 200 yards when he was wounded, but he rushed on till a second bullet brought him down. Another man took on the message and got only a little way when he was hit. A third messenger almost reached the endangered regiment when he was shot. Half-a-dozen men ran out to bring him in. They all were hit; but the wounded messenger making a supreme effort, crawled to the regiment and delivered the message.

Similar gallantry was shown when the Munster Fusiliers were surrounded and a driver of the R.F.A. named Pledge, who was shut up with them, was asked to "cut through" and get the assistance of the artillery. Pledge mounted a horse and dashed through the German lines. His horse fell and Pledge's legs were injured. Nothing daunted, he got his horse on its feet, and again set off at a great pace. To get to the artillery he had to pass down a narrow road, which was lined with German riflemen. He did not stop, however, but rode through without being hit by a single bullet. He conveyed the message to the artillery, which tore off to the assistance of the Munsters, and saved the situation.

In view of the death of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, the story told by Corporal J. Jolley, King's Royal Rifles, has special interest. After the retreat from Mons the Germans were severely punished. On reaching a height overlooking Chorley-sur-Marne, the King's Royal Rifles were the advance guard. They noticed the Germans preparing to blow up a bridge, but they got away on seeing the British. The latter were ordered to take the bridge. Prince Maurice was the first man over, and searched a house all by himself--a brave act for an officer alone. The British got across the bridge.

A short time before he was shot the cap of the Prince was struck by a bullet. The Prince made a joke of the occurrence and laughed.

Among those who fell at Cambrai was Captain Clutterbuck, of the King's Own (Lancaster) Regiment. He was killed while leading a bayonet charge. "Just like Clutterbuck," wrote a wounded sergeant, describing the officer's valour, and adding, "Lieutenant Steele-Perkins also died one of the grandest deaths a British officer could wish for. He was lifted out of the trenches wounded four times, but protested and crawled back again till he was mortally wounded."

A British officer was in one of the Antwerp forts when it was being pounded by great shells. When its doom was sealed the officer ordered the mixed garrison to save themselves. They succeeded in doing so, but the officer, who stuck to the fort as a captain to his sinking ship, was made a prisoner.

A German prisoner told about a Lancashire Fusilier who had been cut off and refused to surrender to two hundred Germans. He lay on the ground and kept firing away until he hadn't a cartridge left, and as his bayonet was gone he stood up with folded arms while they shot him down.

A corporal of the Fusilier Brigade held a company of Germans at bay for two hours by firing at them from different points, and so making them think they had a crowd to face. He was getting on very well until a party of cavalry outflanked him, and as they were right on top of him there was no deceiving as to his "strength," so he bolted, and the Germans took the position he had held so long.

Rev. Percy Wyndham Guinness, Chaplain to the Forces, 3rd Cavalry Brigade, was awarded a D.S.O., because on November 5th he brought Major Dixon, 16th Lancers, when mortally wounded to an ambulance under heavy fire, and on the afternoon of the same day, being the only individual with a horse in the shelled area, took a message under heavy fire from 4th Hussars to headquarters of 3rd Cavalry Brigade.

An Englishman, who had just returned from making his way by the banks of the Aisne in an attempt to take cigarettes to the troops, came across a solitary grave. Twice he passed it, and his attention was arrested by the fact that kindly hands each day strewed fresh flowers over it. On the pontoon bridge near by a French detachment was keeping guard, and the soldiers explained that the grave was that of an English soldier who, quite alone, had there fought till overwhelmed by numbers. During the great retreat he had strayed from his comrades and fallen exhausted from fatigue. Unable to find them he took up his quarters in an abandoned carriage, but thirty-six hours later the Germans appeared on the other side of the Aisne and fired at him. Undeterred by the fact that he was utterly alone he replied, and such was his determination and accuracy of aim that the villagers declared he accounted for six German officers, one of them a general, before he fell under a volley. The French buried him where he had fought, and erected a cross in honour of his gallantry.

The 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers were defending a bridge and the Germans were firing into them. An officer called Stephens was severely wounded, and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy if he had not been rescued by one of the sergeants. Cropp (that was the sergeant's name) went on the bridge, seized the wounded officer, and placed him on his back. Instead of risking a journey across the shot-swept bridge, he decided, encumbered as he was, to swim the canal, which he did. He swam with the wounded officer out of the line of fire to a place of safety.

A private in the East Yorkshire Regiment tells the following story--"One of the hardest night attacks we had to face was made possible by the momentary carelessness of a lad of the Loyal North Lancashires who was on guard and somehow allowed his thoughts to stray in other directions so that he didn't notice the Germans until they were on top of him. He was disarmed, and became terribly distressed over the prospect of what his carelessness had brought on the Army. He had one chance of redeeming his fault, and he took it. Just when the Germans were half-way towards the sleeping camp he made a run for it. He didn't go far, but the shots fired by the Germans warned the camp of what was coming, and the advanced guard held them in check until the main body got under arms. When we found that lad he was just able to explain what had happened, but he was quite happy when I told him there wasn't a soldier who wouldn't think that his heroism had atoned for the original fault. At that he smiled and passed away."

Another private wrote: "One poor fellow here deserves the V.C. He saved two officers under heavy firing; then after that a shell came and blew a horse right in two. One part of the horse fell across the legs of another wounded man. This fellow, named Morris, of the R.E., rushed out and tried to pull the horse off him. He just managed to do so, and the chap could get up, when another shell came and blew the wounded chap's head and shoulders off, at the same time blowing half of Morris's right leg off. The brave fellow has a wife and three children and is only twenty-five years old. I am glad to say he is getting better, although the whole of his leg has been taken off."

This story was told by a sergeant of the Northumberland Fusiliers. "There was a man of the Manchester Regiment who was lying close to the German lines terribly wounded. He happened to overhear some conversation between German soldiers, and being familiar with the language, he gathered that they intended to attack the position we held that night. In spite of his wounds he decided to warn us of the danger, and he set out on the weary tramp of over five miles. He was under fire from the moment he got to his feet, but he stumbled along in spite of that, and soon got out of range. Later he ran into a patrol of Uhlans, but before they saw him he dropped to earth and shammed being dead. They passed by without a sign, and then he resumed his weary journey. But this time the strain had told on him, and his wound began to bleed, marking his path towards our lines with thin red streaks. In the early morning, just half an hour before the time fixed for the German attack, he staggered into one of our advanced posts, and managed to tell his story to the officer in charge before collapsing in a heap. Thanks to the information he gave, we were ready for the Germans when they came, and beat them off; but his anxiety to warn us had cost him his life."

There was a time during the battle of Ypres when our line, so thin in comparison with that of the Germans, was in great danger of being broken, but the courage of individuals of all ranks saved the situation. The General commanding the division spent one day with his staff in the trenches encouraging the men. Brigadier-General H.E. Watts rushed into the firing line on one occasion to rally the infantry. A spy, a German in a British uniform, had brought an order to retire at a moment when retirement would have meant annihilation. From his post in a château the Brigadier saw the movement. He acted at once. He ran through a storm of shrapnel, placed himself at the head of the battalions, formed them up under cover of a road, and then headed them at the charge back to the trench they had vacated.

Private Jones and Private Vennicombe, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, decided that they would rescue Colonel Ponsonby, their colonel, who had fallen. Although German bullets were falling fast, the two men made a dash towards their colonel's body. They found that he had been shot in the leg, and was unable to walk. Between them they managed to get back safely into the cover of their companions, carrying their colonel.

So great was the gallantry of Private Goggins, of the Leinster Regiment, that in a night he brought in under fire no less than sixty wounded men.

Sergeant-major White, of the Army Service Corps, was awarded the Victoria Cross for a deed which he thus described to an interviewer. "We got orders at night to move a convoy. We ran into an ambush of Uhlans and they gave it to us hot. I accounted for four of them with my sword, but we had to retire. When we reached a place where we could pull ourselves together the officer asked if anyone had seen Captain Grey, who was in charge. It was stated he had been shot down, and I said I would go back for him. I went and found him, and placing him across my horse, galloped back to safety with bullets whistling round. I was hit in both legs."

Lance-corporal F.W. Holmes, of the 2nd Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, after carrying a wounded man out of the trenches under heavy fire assisted to drive a gun out of action by taking the place of the driver, who had been wounded. His letters to his wife contained no mention of his deeds, but after he was invalided home with a bullet wound in the leg, he informed her that he had received the French Medaille Militaire and had been recommended for the Victoria Cross.

An officer of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, writing to the parents of Private Tom Barry, said: "All letters written by men have to be read and signed by an officer. Your son is under me (on the maxim gun), and I read his letters. I see he is too modest to tell you that he has been mentioned for conspicuous conduct. During an advance the man carrying one of the maxims was wounded and lying in the open. Your son ran out from under cover, brought the gun up to the firing line, and then went back for the ammunition he had previously been carrying. He is a good soldier, and I am proud to have him in my section. If you have any more like Tom, send them out here."

War in the air has given to many individuals an opportunity of showing gallantry. An officer thus described a duel between a German and a British airman. "The German manœuvred for position and prepared to attack, but our fellow was too quick for him, and darted into a higher plane. The German tried to circle round and follow, and so in short spurts they fought for mastery, firing at each other all the time, the machines swaying and oscillating violently. The British airman, however, well maintained his ascendancy. Then suddenly there was a pause, the German machine began to reel, the wounded pilot had lost control, and with a dive the aeroplane came to earth half a mile away. Our man hovered about for a time, and then calmly glided away over the German lines to reconnoitre."