Chapter XI: Brothers-in-Arms

Whatever Christians who profess more do in reference to brotherly love, British soldiers are real brothers to each other on active service. Each man seems to say, "He that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother."

The following is from a sergeant's letter in _The Evening News_: "Out there sublime deeds of heroism are being performed every day by common soldiers whom the ordinary 'civvy' would pass by with contempt in times of peace. After Cambrai I was thrown a lot with a wild Glasgow Irishman belonging to the Royal Scots and a wounded man of the Dorsets. We took refuge in a farmhouse, and one day the Irishman had the ill-luck of showing himself to a party of Germans on the prowl. He took it into his head that he hadn't played the game by bringing the Germans down on us, and after reporting their presence he said he was going out just for a bit of a dander. He had not an earthly chance of escaping. Before he left I told him so, but that didn't weigh with him at all. 'It's like this,' he said, 'you've got a missus and children to look after. So's that chap in the corner. I'm as bad as they make 'em, and nobody will be a thraneen the poorer if I'm shot this very minute. It was my carelessness in going about that gave us away to the Germans. They don't know there's anybody here but me, and if I rush out they'll get me and go off content. He walked coolly out to the front gate, and made a rush into the fields to the left. The Germans saw him and fired. He fell riddled with bullets, and they went after him. They must have thought that he was the only man in the house, for they didn't come back, and we lay there for three days until we managed to get back to our own lines."

Another man also thought of wife and kids. "In a night fight one of the Gloucesters had his rifle knocked out of his hand, and a big German lunged at him with a bayonet. Quick as lightning one of his mates sprang between him and the German, and received the thrust in his chest. He died within an hour, and when they asked him why he did it, his answer was, 'Oh, God, I couldn't help it. He's got a wife and kids.'"

A corporal of the Bedfordshire Regiment wrote: "Near our trenches there were a lot of wounded, and their cries for water were pitiful. In the trenches was a quiet chap of the Engineers, who could stand it no longer. He collected all the water bottles he could lay hold of, and said he was going out. The air was thick with shell and rifle fire, and to show yourself at all was to sign your death warrant. That chap knew it as well as we did, but that was not going to stop him. He got to the first man all right and gave him a swig from a bottle. No sooner did he show himself than the Germans opened fire. After attending to the first man he crawled along the ground to others until he was about a quarter of a mile away from us. Then he stood up and zigzagged towards another batch of wounded, but that was the end of him. The German fire got hotter and hotter. He was hit badly, and with just a slight upward fling of his arms he dropped to earth like the hero he was. Later he was picked up with the wounded, but he was as dead as they make them out here. The wounded men for whose sake he had risked and lost his life thought a lot of him, and were greatly cut up at his death. One of them who was hit so hard that he would never see another Sunday said to me as we passed the Engineer chap, who lay with a smile on his white face, and had more bullets in him than would set a battalion of sharpshooters up in business for themselves, 'He was a rare good one, he was. It's something worth living for to have seen a deed like that, and now that I have seen it, I don't care what becomes of me.' That's what we all felt about it."

One of the King's Royal Rifles told in a letter how a Highlander milked a cow under rifle and shell fire to get something for his wounded mates to drink when the water ran out. Also how a boy of the Connaught Rangers rushed out of the trenches under heavy fire to an orchard near by to get an apple for a wounded comrade who was suffering from thirst and hunger. "He got the apple all right, but he got a German bullet or two in him as well on the way back, and dropped dead within 50 feet of the goal. The wounded chap had his apple brought in after an artillery man had been wounded in getting at it. I hope he valued it, for it was the costliest apple I ever heard tell of bar one, and that was a long time ago."

Sergeant J. Rolfe, 2nd Battalion King's Royal Rifles, wrote: "When I got hit, I couldn't say how long I lay there, but a chum of mine, Tommy Quaife, under a perfect hail of bullets and shells, dragged me to safety, and said, 'Cheer up, Smiler, here's a fag. I'm going back for Sandy' (his other chum). He never got there. Poor Tommy got a piece of shell and was buried the same night."

In a lancer charge near Cambrai a man dropped a letter. It had arrived just as the order was given to mount, and he had not had time to read it. Even in mid-charge a comrade saw it fall out of his tunic and returned it at great risk.

Two Highlanders were carrying a wounded comrade, and he dropped a stick of chocolate, a thing of which only soldiers in the field under trying conditions know the value. He fretted and worried about it, and at last one of his chums volunteered to go back for it to where it had been dropped, not more than two hundred yards away. He never came back. In full view of his companions he was hit by a bullet and fell dead. There was another case where a religious Dublin Fusilier lost his life because he stayed just long enough to cross the hands of a dead comrade, and say a prayer for his departed soul.

One night a man of the West Yorkshire Regiment took off his coat and wrapped it around a wounded chum who had to lie there until the ambulance took him away. All that night he stood in the trenches in his shirt-sleeves, with water up to his waist, and the temperature near to freezing point, quietly returning the German fire. On the afternoon of the following day he had acute pneumonia.

The following was related by a British Hussar. After the charge of the Highlanders on the German heavy guns near Hanbourdin the Hussar was sent with a message to the base. On the way he encountered a Seaforth Highlander going in the same direction. Something in the man's set face prompted the question: "Are you hurt?" "Aye, a sma' matter," was the reply. The man's arm was shattered from shoulder to elbow. "Are you going to sick bay?" said the cavalryman. "It's a mile and a half away. Get on my gee." "No, no," said the Scot, "I'll just walk, you'll find many worse hit than me."

Private D.F. Gilmore, of the Seaforth Highlanders, told this in a letter: "It was on the Aisne. We had had a hard day. Our casualties were greater than I care to tell. I was with a fatigue party collecting the wounded and burying the dead. We came on a sergeant of artillery and about twenty wounded men. The sergeant was nearest and I signed to my mates to take him first. He waved us away. 'I can wait. Get the others first. They're much worse.' That was what he said. We persisted. He got angry. 'I'm your superior in rank, and if you disobey I'll report you for insubordination.' That settled it, so we started on the others. We got the last away, and came back for the sergeant. He was stone dead. Unknown to us he had been bleeding to death. He must have known that when he made us attend to the others. Had he been taken at first his life would have been saved."

The night before the beginning of the same battle of the Aisne, two men of the Middlesex Regiment had a disagreement and came to blows. The conqueror was struck with shrapnel next day, and the man who was beaten endangered his life to save him. When he had nearly dragged him to a place of safety a shell killed both men.

A stretcher party came on seven men wounded. Only six could be taken, and the problem was to select the seventh. One man solved it. "I'm the worst case," he said. "If you take me I'll probably die on the way. These other chaps will all pull through and make good soldiers yet. Leave me. You won't? Well, if you try to take me I'll resist, and that'll be the end of me, so you'd better let me have my way." What could they do but let him have his way? And so he was left. An hour later they came back, and he was dead.

"There were two men of the Camerons who had been chums since their boyhood" (writes Sergeant R. Duffy, Rifle Brigade). "They had 'listed together, and been in I don't know how many scrapes and 'scraps' side by side. In the fighting around Ypres one night one of them got hit in a bayonet fight. The regiment had to return to the trenches, leaving the wounded to take their chance for the time being out in the cold. The wounded man's chum caught sight of him lying in the roadway with the pallor of death in his face, and his teeth chattering with the terrible cold. 'My God, Jock,' he exclaimed, 'is it you that's lying there? A canna' lee ye, so a'll stay wi' ye tae the morn.' The wounded man wouldn't hear of it, but his chum meant to have his way, and he got it. Next morning we had a look for the two, and we found them side by side--both dead. They had crept together under their greatcoats to keep warm, but death had found them all the same."

A cavalry sergeant, though he had got three wounds, went to a badly wounded corporal who was shouting to be taken out of the way of the line. The wounded sergeant bound up the other man's wound, set him on his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then the sergeant limped along on foot as best he could after his regiment to fight again.

W. Roberts, 1st Life Guards, wrote to a friend how his regiment gave timely and thoughtful assistance: "We were sent to help the Queen's Regiment one day. It was just getting dark, and it had been raining for three days without stopping. We were only just in time, and they had given up all hope. The Germans were just about to charge them, but when they saw us they made it 'as you were.' We helped to carry out the wounded. It was awful. They were nearly wiped out; chaps with arms and faces smashed. It was terrible. The trenches were full of water, and the men were blue with cold, and as our chaps went to carry out the dead and wounded the Germans fired on them. We made them as comfortable as we could, making them fags and giving them tea, and we took their places in the trenches that night."

How these acts should rebuke us when in time of peace we refuse to do small deeds of kindness!

When allies do not pull well together there is trouble, but happily this is not the case in the present war. There is a fine fraternity between the French and the British soldier. The French calls out, "Bravo, Tommie!" and his British brother replies, "Right, O!" It is not a long conversation and there is no dangerous discussion, but it shows good will.

Once at least French and British soldiers were play-fellows. Seven of our men having lost their regiment joined a French one for the time being. They taught the French how to play football, and often played with them when under fire.

One of the Royal Lancasters said in a letter that the sign manual of friendship between the French and the British soldier is a cross on the throat indicating their wish to the Kaiser. "The French Tommies copy us a lot, and they like, when they have time, to stroll into our lines for a chat or a game. They are fond of the jam served to us and exchange things for it."

On one occasion the appreciation of the French soldiers was even embarrassing. They had seen the Irish Guards put to flight great numbers of the "Kaiser's crush," and when the regiment marched back the French stood up in their trenches and roared applause. The Irish Guards, who only became a regiment after the Boer war, felt shy about this French fuss. They did not like the idea that it was their first time in action, and that their battle honour was brand new.