204
THE YPRES TIMES
fighting followed all the following day, and towards evening we seemed to have
turned the German right. About 7 p.m. the Brigade was on a hill in a wood,
looking down on a large plain, xvhen there appeared in the open a division of
Uhlans, which was the only time 1 ever saw German cavalry en masse during
the war.
General Gough decided to let us charge the lot, though we were only a brigade
to the enemy's division. An assemblage of officers followed to decide whether
we should charge with our swords drawn or our pistols, but everyone who had a
flask drew it without seeking any advice.
As soon as we moved out towards the Uhlans they retired, which might have
been a trap, but if so we were not caught in it, as we were ordered to wheel about
and retire after General Smith-Dorrien's army, whose retreat we were covering. It
was a very dark and very wet night and we reached a French village about 9.30 p.m.,
where the Brigade halted on sides of the street, the 16th Lancers being opposite
us. The writer of this was ordered to stand by the telephone and report a call
from the Commander-in-Chief, which came about IX p.m. I summoned General
Gough and a conversation took place between them, after which the General said
to me, "Jim, the position is very serious, I fear we are surrounded and the Germans
are in Amiens (which was the case). He said, I think I know a way out; warn
the regiments to get all the food they can for the men and horses and have them
ready to march at 1 a.m., with the 5th Lancers leading at the southern end of the
town." He said also, there is not to be a sound, nor a cigarette lighted," and
that he would lead the column himself. The column consisted of the 5th and
16th Lancers, 4th Hussars, a squadron of various units we had picked up, and two
troops of Horse Artillery.
We marched all night in black darkness without being attacked, and arrived
in some meadows near St. Quentin (29 miles) at sunrise on the morning of
August 27th. Orders were given to dismount and lie down and rest, holding our
horses' reins.
Very shortly a German Taube soared over us and went away. We expected
to be shelled, but by a miracle the mist that rises from the grass in the early autumn
morning obliterated the view from the Taube and they saw nothing. We kept
manoeuvring, covering General Ferguson's retreat and making the enemy deploy,
and billeted at Ittamount. Rear-guard actions and destruction of bridges followed,
via Chauney, Pierremonde, to Vizaponen, reached on Sunday, August 31st.
The following day a troop under Lieut. Julien got into trouble and had several
losses, including Lieut. Julien, who was found dead at the cross-roads with his
horse standing beside him. Fortunately I got the horse, a very good one, which
remained my second charger afterwards.
On September 2nd (Wednesday) we marched from Betz at 4 a.m., a rear-guard
action all day, and reached Meaux in the evening, which was the nearest point we
got to Paris about eight miles outside "the forts." During the afternoon we met
a motor-car at a cross-roads, in which was Col. J. Seely, later Major-General the
Rt. Hon. J. E. B. Seely (late of the War Office), who had come out from Paris.
Owing to a disagreement about the 3rd Cavalry Brigade going "to Ulster" prior
to the outbreak of war, our General did not receive Col. Seely very enthusiastically,
and the latter asked me if he could help us. When I told him that a lot of our
men who had had the horses shot under them were trying to struggle along on
foot, he immediately went at full speed down the road towards the advancing
Germans and returned later with a crowd of stalwart Lancers standing in the car
and on the footboards with their stripped lances, which made the vehicle look like a
porcupine. It was a gallant and plucky effort, and when he took back with him to
Paris all our letters for post he was blessed generally.
