6
4 p.m. an order came down the line, When the whistle goes charge." I had just told
my men this when a whistle blew, and a thin khaki line sprang up cheering and started
across the open. Such a charge was doomed to failure before it started. None of us
knew what we were charging, and we were disunited. I picked up a spade and ran with
my men over a water-logged turnip-field till we could run no more. All the cheering
had stopped I could see no one on either flank, so I stopped too, and found some French
soldiers having tea amongst some dead horses. I put my men into some trenches and
wandered about to try to find out what was going on. I was on the Ypres-Menin road,
at the Veldhoek crossroads, when there occurred a very brave action. I found a line of
men of the Worcesters lying across the road in the charge of a quartermaster-sergeant.
They were firing at a German barricade across the road about 400 yards away. There
was a machine-gun at the barricade. I discussed the matter with the Q.M.S., and we
decided to ask the gunners to blow it down for us. I therefore went to a battery that I
knew of some little way back in the wood, and explained what we wanted done. They
told me they had practically no shells left, but would do their best. I returned to the
crossroads. Shells soon came over
our heads from behind, but none
of them made a direct hit. I was
just going back to the battery,
when, to my astonishment, I saw
a gun with its team coming hell
for leather down the road under
a stream of bullets from the
machine-gun. As it pulled up a
horse fell dead, but was at once
cut out. The gun was manned
by a subaltern himselfhis name
I have never discoveredwho put
a percussion shrapnel right on
to the barricade, fired two or
three more shells at the fleeing
Germans, wheeled his gun into the ditch, told me to look after it, and, mounting his
horse, galloped off.
I went back to my men and exchanged a tin of bully beef with a Frenchman for a
loaf of French bread. I had some jam and tea and wandered up again to the crossroads.
It was now getting dusk. As I got there General FitzClarence was standing on the road
quite alone. I heard him ask if there was an officer about. I reported myself. He said,
Good! Take all these men round here and charge that German trench, and get in touch
with the Guards, who are still holding on across the road. I have just been up to the
trench, and they challenged me in German. There are only a few of them, and they will
run at once. Now then, men, follow your officer! The men he gave me were a varied
collectionsome Worcesters, some Bedfords, I believe, some Oxford and Bucks., and
some of my own. The men shouted, "No, sir! We must stop the flanking fire first."
I give a diagram of the position as well as I can remember it, which explains what the
men meant. I obtained the General's permission to try to get a battalion
of French colonial troops, who were a little way back on the road, to co-operate with me
and attack on the left of the road, as I felt that even if I and my little party did get into
the German trench we could hardly stay there. The colonial troops, however, were up
in the trees and nothing would persuade them to come down.
On our left front was a row of houses from which we had been sniped all the after
noon on our right front a farm, from which snipers had also been firing. The General
Farm
