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[The King’s Royal Rifle Corps, the famous old 60th Rifles, the “Greenjackets,” I have had a large share in the war and have added to their glorious distinctions. Many of the officers of this regiment have given their lives for their country, amongst them being Prince Maurice of Battenberg. Some details of the Prince’s service in the war before he was killed in action are given in this story by Rifleman Brice, of the 60th, who was wounded at the Battle of the Aisne and invalided home.]

When we first landed in France we were welcomed and cheered by crowds of French people who decked us with flowers and couldn’t do too much for us, and they kept that kindness up all the time I was over there until I was sent home with a lot more wounded. Throwing flowers at us was a great deal pleasanter than the shells and bullets which were shot at us a few days later, when we were in the thick of trench-digging and fighting. It’s astonishing how soon you settle down to a state of things that you’ve never been used to and how extraordinarily war alters life and people.

The Greenjackets are very proud of themselves, especially in time of peace, and have many little ways of their own; but a war like this makes all soldiers chums and equals and even the officers are practically just like the men. Our own colonel did his share in the trench-digging, and a royal officer like Prince Maurice of Battenberg, who is now resting in a soldier’s grave, was living the same life as the rest of us. Many an act of kindness did the Prince show to his riflemen, and many a fierce fight he shared in before he was killed in battle; many a word of cheer did he utter to men who were almost exhausted and nearly dying of thirst, and I have seen him go and buy fresh bread, when it could be got, and give it to us as a treat—and a glorious treat it was!

One of the first things we had to do after the retirement from Mons was to bury German dead, and you will get some idea of the awful losses they suffered, even at the beginning of the war, when I tell you that in one place alone we were about eight hours in doing this unpleasant task.

We got used to digging ourselves in and being shelled out, and to guarding towns and villages while the panic-stricken inhabitants escaped to safety. It was a pitiful sight to see people turned out of their houses, taking their belongings, when they could, in carts, perambulators, wheelbarrows and every available conveyance. They always kept as close to us as they could keep, and our fellows used to collect money amongst themselves for the poor souls and give them all the food they could spare—and they were very grateful if we gave them only a biscuit.

It was terrible work on our way to the Aisne; but the hardships were lightened for us in many little ways that counted a lot. Some of our officers would carry two rifles, when men became too weary to carry their own; the colonel would jump off his horse and give an exhausted man a lift in the saddle, and he would take apples from his pockets and pass them along the ranks to the men. These acts of kindness helped us all enormously. And we were helped on the way by smoking—what a joy it was to get a fag, especially when cigarettes ran so short that one would go round a dozen times, passed from man to man, and a chap was sorely tempted to take a pull that was almost enough to fill him with smoke. When we hadn’t a scrap of tobacco of any sort we would roll a fag of dried tea-leaves which had been used for making tea—and that was better than nothing.

It was fighting all the way to the Aisne, heavy rearguard actions most of the time, though in a lesser war many of these affairs would have been reckoned proper battles. One night, at about ten o’clock, after a hard march, we had reached a town, and had thankfully gone into our billets—houses, barns, any sort of place that came handy, and we were expecting a peaceful time; but we were no sooner settling down than we got the alarm to dress and fall in. Getting dressed was the work of seconds only, because undressing was merely a case of putting the pack and equipment and rifle down and resting on the flags or earth, or, if we were lucky, hay or straw; and so, when the alarm was given, we very soon fell in, and with fixed bayonets we rushed for a bridge across the river that we had been ordered to take.

At the point of the bayonet the bridge was carried with a splendid rush, then we had to hold it while our transport and ammunition column got out of the town, and there we were till seven o’clock next morning. The main body of the troops retired and left us as a rearguard; but they had not gone from the town more than ten minutes when we saw the Germans coming towards the bridge in swarms. There was no help for it—we had to get away from the bridge which we had held throughout the night.

We began to retire in good order, fighting desperately, and our men falling killed and wounded. Yard by yard we fell back from the bridge, firing as furiously as we could at the German masses, and for half a mile we kept up an unequal rearguard struggle. It seemed that we should be hopelessly outnumbered and that there was little hope; then we saw two divisions of the French advancing, and knew that we should pull through. The French came on and gave us help, and, covering our retirement, enabled us to get away from the bridge.

It was in one of the charges on a bridge which was held by the Germans, just before we got to the Aisne, that Prince Maurice distinguished himself. He was very daring and was always one of the first in the fighting, no matter where or what it was. I was not actually in the charge, being in the supports behind; but I saw the charge made, and a grand sight it was to watch our fellows rush forward with the steel and take the bridge. At another time the Prince was in action with a German rearguard and narrowly escaped death. I was in this affair, and saw a German shell burst about a yard away. It plugged into the ground and made a fine commotion and scattered earth and fragments around us; but a chum and myself laughed as we dodged it, and that was the way we got into of taking these explosions when we became used to the war. You could not help laughing, even if you were a bit nervous. During this fight Prince Maurice was shot through the cap, so that he had a shave for his life, but he made light of his escape, and was very proud of the hole in the cap, which he showed to us when he talked with us, as he often did, before he fell.

There were so many incidents of coolness and disregard of wounds that it is not easy to recollect them all; but I call to mind that our adjutant, Lieutenant Woods, was shot in a little affair with the Germans. A sergeant had taken a maxim gun to put in position at a certain spot; but he had gone the wrong way and the adjutant went after him to put things right. He was too late, however, for the sergeant was spotted by the Germans and was killed. The adjutant himself was struck, but managed to get away, and he came back laughing and saying, “Oh! damn those Germans! They’ve shot me in the leg!” But in spite of the wound he would not lie up or let anybody do anything for him—he bound up the wound himself and carried on.

I saw another case, later, which illustrates the coolness of the British officer and his determination not to leave the fight till he is forced to do so. I was by that time wounded and in a temporary hospital, and the artillery were keeping up one of the endless duels. The officer had been struck, and he came into the hospital, and I saw that his hand had been partially blown off; but instead of caving in, as he might well have done, he had the hand bound up and put it in a sling, then he went back to his battery just outside the windows and kept on pounding away at the Germans.

We had plenty of excitement with the German aeroplanes, and often potted at them, but I did not see any of the machines brought down. I remember one day when an aeroplane was trying to locate our position—we were retiring through a French village—and a brigade started firing at it. Just when the aeroplane appeared, the little boys and girls of the village were giving us delicious plums, which they were getting from the trees. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and the youngsters liked it too, when the aeroplane swooped along and we instantly started firing at it. So many rifles going made a tremendous rattle, and the poor little boys and girls were terrified and ran off screaming, and scattered in all directions. We shouted to them and tried to bring them back, but they didn’t come, and disappeared in all sorts of hiding-places. The aeroplane got away, I believe, but at any rate it did no mischief at that particular spot. The French civilian folk got used to running off and hiding. In another village we passed through we came to a large house and found that three young ladies and their parents had been forced into the cellar and locked there by the Germans. When we entered the house, the prisoners were starving, and were thankful for anything that we gave them; but they would not take any money from us. The young ladies spoke English quite nicely.

We got quite used to aeroplanes—our own, the Germans, and the French, and saw several thrilling fights in the air. Once we saw a French aeroplane furiously fired on by the Germans—a regular cannonade it was; but the shells and bullets never got at it, and the aeroplane escaped. It was wonderful to see the way the machine shot down, as if nothing could prevent it from smashing on the ground, then to watch it suddenly turn upward and soar away as safely and swiftly as a bird. The airman’s idea seemed to be to dodge the fire, and he darted about in such a bewildering fashion that no gunner or rifleman could hope to do anything with him. We were all greatly excited by this thrilling performance in the air, and glad when we knew that the plucky Frenchman had been swift enough to dodge the shells and bullets.

We had had some very trying work to do, and now we were going to get our reward for it. Some of the hardest of the work was that about which people hear nothing, and perhaps never even think—on sentry at night, for instance, about the most nerve-racking job you can imagine. We were always double sentry, and stood for two hours about five yards from each other, like statues, never moving. I always felt funky at this sort of work at the start—you can imagine such a lot in the dark and the strain is so heavy. At the slightest sound the rifle would be presented, and the word “Halt!” ring out—just that word and nothing more, and if there wasn’t an instant satisfactory reply it was a bad look-out for the other party. The Germans were very cunning at getting up to some of the British outposts and sentries, and as so many of them speak English very well, they were dangerous customers to tackle, and this added to the heavy strain of sentry work at night.

Now I come to the Battle of the Aisne. I had three days and nights of it before I was bowled out.

A strange thing happened on the first day of the battle, and that was the appearance of a little black dog. I don’t know where he came from, or why he joined us, but he followed the battalion all the rest of the time I was with it, and not only that, but he went into action, so he became quite one of us.

Once, in the darkness, we walked into a German outpost. We found it pretty hard going just about there, for the German dead were so thick that we had to walk over them. That march in the night was a wonderful and solemn thing. Three columns of us were going in different directions, yet moving so quietly that you could scarcely hear a sound. All around us, in that Valley of the Aisne, were burning buildings and haystacks, making a terrible illumination, and showing too well what war means when it is carried on by a nation like the Germans, for this burning and destroying was their doing.

Silently, without any talking, we went on, and then we fell into the outpost. I heard the stillness of the night broken by the sharp sound of voices, a sound which was instantly followed by shots, and the furious barking of our little dog, which up to that point had been perfectly quiet. The shots were fired by Captain Woollen, who killed two of the Germans, and one of our men shot a third. We left them where they fell and retired as quickly as we could; but we had done what we started out to do, and that was to find the position of the enemy.

While advancing again we caught a column of Germans. Our brigade-major saw them and came tearing back and told us that they were about fourteen hundred yards to the left of us. Within ten minutes we had a firing line made and our artillery was in position as well. It was a grand sight to see our fellows running into the firing line smoking cigarettes, as cool as if they were doing a bit of skirmishing on training.

We gave the Germans about three hours’ hot firing, then a company went round to take the prisoners. The white flag had been shown, but we had not been allowed to take any notice of that until we were sure of our men, because the Germans had so often made a wrong use of the signal of surrender. When the company got round to the Germans it was found that they had already thrown down their rifles. Our brigade took about 500 prisoners, and the rest we handed over to the 1st Division. The Germans had about a mile and a half of convoy, which got away; but the French captured it in the evening, and so made a very nice little complete victory of the affair.

At that time, early in the war, the Germans thought they were going to have it all their own way, and they considered that any trick, white flag or otherwise, was good enough. So certain were they about victory that in one village we passed through we saw written on a wall, in English, evidently by a German, “We will do the tango in Paris on the 13th.” We laughed a good deal when we read that boast, and well we might, for it was on the 13th that we saw the writing on the wall, and the Germans by that time were getting driven a long way back from the French capital.

On the Monday morning we went out as flank guard on the Aisne, and were going along behind some hills when our captain spotted swarms of Germans coming up over a ridge about twelve hundred yards away. He ordered two platoons to go out and line the ridge, and for the ridge we went. When we reached it, our captain told us that not a man was to show his head over the ridge until he gave the word to fire.

The Germans came on, getting nearer and nearer, in dense masses, and it was the hardest thing in the world not to let fly at them. They advanced till they were about seven hundred yards away, then we showed them what British rifles could do. We simply went for them, and our rifles got so hot that we could scarcely hold them. Despite that awful hail of bullets the Germans came on, and hurled themselves against us till they were not more than a hundred yards away; then we wanted to charge them, and begged to be let loose with the bayonet, but our captain told us that there were not enough of us to do it. So we retired to our own battalion, the whole of which had the joy of going for them. But the Germans didn’t wait for us. They don’t like the British steel, and when we had pushed them right back, without actually getting at them, they cleared off.

This was the kind of thing that went on in the Valley of the Aisne. It was work in the open and work in the trenches, on top of the incessant fighting we had had. On the third day, at night, we had just come out of the trenches, having been relieved by another company. We were in good spirits, for we had been sent to a barn, where we were to spend the night. That was a splendid bit of luck, because it meant that we were to get a nice rest and have a good time. The barn had hay in it, and we simply packed the place. It was on a farm, and during the day we had seen the farmer and his wife. There was a village near, with a church and houses, and it had proved a fine target for the Germans, who constantly shelled the place. We had got quite into the way of watching the shells burst about fifty yards in front of us, and it really was a grand sight to sit and gaze at them. We sometimes did this when we were so heavily bombarded that we could do nothing with the rifle or bayonet. Little did we know what was in store for us at the barn from shells.

The night passed and the morning came. We breakfasted and made ready to march; but were

[To face p. 38. “THE GERMANS CAME ON AND HURLED THEMSELVES AGAINST US.”

ordered to hold back a bit, and so we put aside our packs and rifles and had a sing-song to pass the time. It was one of the most surprising concerts ever held, I daresay, because all the time about three German batteries were shelling us, and occasionally a shell burst very near us and made an awful commotion. We were still packed in the barn, quite cheerful, when the sergeant who was in charge of us, and was acting as sergeant-major, told us to fall in.

He had hardly spoken the words when the very building seemed to collapse, the wall was blown in, the roof fell, timbers crashed down and the barn was filled with a horrible smoke and dust, and there were deafening and awful cries—screams and groans where a few moments earlier there had been the sound of merriment, for a German shell had crashed through the wall and exploded in the very thick of us.

I was lying down in the barn, with my pack on, when this thing happened. I sprang to my feet and dashed to the door and rushed into the open air, but as soon as I had left the building a second shell came and burst and I was knocked down. I tried to rise, but my leg was numb, and so I had to wait till the stretcher-bearers came and took me to a big white house about three hundred yards away, which had been turned into a hospital, and there I was put with the rest of the wounded. For about ten minutes I had to wait outside, and there I was struck by a piece of spent shell, but not much hurt. When we were carried off in the stretchers we were kept near the bank of the road, to avoid as much as possible the German fire.

At the hospital it was found that I had been wounded in the leg; but I did not care so much about myself, I wanted to know what had happened in the barn. I soon learned the dreadful truth—the shells had killed eleven of the men and wounded thirty-two, some of whom died afterwards.

Prince Maurice was close at hand when this happened, and at night he attended the burial of the poor fellows near the barn. About an hour after the men were killed he came into the house to see us. “How are you getting on?” he asked me. “I am so sorry such a dreadful thing has happened.” And he looked it, too.

I was in the hospital three days before being sent home. All that time there were villagers in the cellars of the hospital, terrified people who were hiding from the German fire, and were fed from our transport.

A lot was crowded into that retirement from Mons and the advance to the Aisne. We had kept our spirits up and had not been downhearted, and when the great day came which brought the order to advance and fight the enemy, we positively shouted and sang. And this was not just swank; it was a real expression of our feelings, for we wanted to do our bit for the Empire.