Soldiers' Stories of the War

CHAPTER XIV

THE THREE TORPEDOED CRUISERS [To face p. 168. “THE MEN WERE TOLD TO LAY HANDS ON ANYTHING THAT WOULD FLOAT” (p. 172 ). CHAPTER XIV THE THREE TORPEDOED CRUISERS [Within a few minutes, on the morning of Tuesday, September 22nd, 1914, three large British cruisers, sister ships, foundered in the North Sea, after being torpedoed by German submarines, and nearly 1,500 officers and men perished. The ships were the Aboukir , Cressy and Hogue . Each was of 12,000 tons, with a speed of twenty-two knots, and each cost £750,000. The vessels were fine warships, but almost obsolete, and before the war it had been decided to sell them out of the Navy. The Aboukir was torpedoed, and while the Hogue and Cressy had closed, and were standing by to save the crew, they also were torpedoed. All three ships speedily sank. The boats were filled, and, later, destroyers and other vessels came up and rescued many of the survivors, amongst whom was C. C. Nurse, an able seaman of the Hogue , whose story is here retold. The casualties were very heavy; but, said the Admiralty, the lives lost were “as usefully, as necessarily, and as gloriously devoted to the requirements of his Majesty’s service as if the loss had been incurred in a general action.”] The three cruisers, sister ships, were on patrol duty in the North Sea early on the morning of September 22nd. They were alone, protecting our own merchant ships and on the look-out for vessels that were mine-laying. The weather was nice, with a rather heavy swell on the water. There had been plenty of bad weather, and this was the first good day we had had for a week. I had done my twelve years in the Navy and had been called up from the Royal Fleet Reserve. We had settled into our stride and had been in at the tail-end of the scrap in the Heligoland Bight, where the Hogue got hold of the Arethusa and towed her away. At that time the Arethusa had been commissioned only about two days. We knew that she was just beginning her life; but we little thought that the Hogue was ending hers. It was my watch below, and I was asleep in my hammock when the bugles sounded the réveillé , and we were shaken up and told that one of our ships was going down. We had turned in all standing, and lost no time in rushing on deck. Then I saw that the Aboukir , which was about six hundred yards away, was heeling over, and that we were steaming up to her assistance. At first we thought she had been mined; but we quickly learned that she had been torpedoed by German submarines. We were very soon alongside of her, and were doing everything we could to save the survivors. It was very clear that she was sinking, that a good many of the crew had been killed by the explosion, and that a lot of men, who were far below, in the engine-room and stokeholds, would have no chance of escaping. We instantly started getting out the few boats that were left in our ship. There were only three, because we were cleared for action, and as it was war-time the great majority of them had been taken away. This has to be done so that there shall be as little woodwork as possible to be splintered by shells. With extraordinary speed some of the Aboukir’s men had got to the Hogue , and some, who were badly hurt, had been taken to the sick-bay and were being attended to. The attack had come swiftly, and it was for us the worst of all attacks to guard against; but there was nothing like panic anywhere, and from the calmness of things you might have thought that the three ships were carrying out some ordinary evolution. I was standing on the starboard side of the after-shelter-deck of the Hogue , and could see a great deal of what was going on. With remarkable smartness and speed our two lifeboats were got away to the Aboukir , our men pulling splendidly on their life-saving errand. Our main derrick, too, was over the side and had got the launch out. The launch was a big rowing-boat, which would hold about a hundred men, and not a second had been lost in getting her afloat under the direction of Lieutenant-Commander Clive Phillipps-Wolley. He worked the derrick to get the launch out, though he was not in the best of health, and only a little while previously he had been ill in his bunk. He was near me on the after-bridge, which was above the shelter-deck, and I saw and heard him giving orders for the getting out of the launch. That was the last I knew about him. He was one of the lost. The launch was afloat, and the men were ready to hurry up to the Aboukir ; but before she could get away the very deck under my feet was blown up. There was a terrific explosion, and a huge column of wreckage rose. I was stunned for a moment by the force of the explosion. I thought we had been mined; but almost instantly there was a second explosion under me, and I knew that we had been torpedoed. The Hogue had been badly holed, and she began to heel over to starboard immediately. It is only telling the plain truth to say that there was practically no confusion, and that every man was cool and going about his business as if no such thing as a calamity like this had happened. War is war, and we were ready for all sorts of things—and the discipline of the British Navy always stands firm at a crisis. There was naturally a good deal of noise, shouting of orders, and orderly rushing to and fro as men carried them out; but everything was done with wonderful coolness, and the splendid courage of the officers was reflected in the men. A noble example was set, and it was magnificently followed. The men waited until they got their orders, just as they did at any other time. The captain was on the fore-bridge, and I heard him shouting; but as I was so far aft I could not clearly make out what he said. I know, however, that he was ordering every man to look after himself. The men were told to take their clothes off, and to lay hands on anything that would float. They promptly obeyed, and at the word of command a lot of them jumped overboard. There was then hope that we could all get to the Cressy , which was still uninjured, standing by and doing all she could to rescue the survivors of her two sister ships. Soon, however, she herself was torpedoed, and in a few moments it was perfectly clear that the three ships were going to the bottom of the sea. All the cruisers shared the same fate, and were doomed. They were the only British ships at hand, and we did not expect the enemy, being Germans, to do anything for us. But everything that skill and resource could do was done by our own survivors without a moment’s loss of time. In the sea there was an amazing collection of things that had been thrown overboard—tables, chairs, spars, oars, hand-spikes, targets and furniture from the officers’ cabins, such as chests of drawers. And everything that could float was badly wanted, because the sea was simply covered with men who were struggling for dear life, and knew that the fight would have to be a long and terrible one. It takes a long time to talk of what happened, but, as a matter of fact, the whole dreadful business, so far as the loss of the ships was concerned, was over in a few minutes. As far as I can reckon, the Hogue herself was struck three times within a minute or so. The first torpedo came, followed almost immediately by a second in the same place, and by a third about a minute afterwards. The war-head of a torpedo holds a very big charge of gun-cotton, which, when it explodes against the side of a ship, drives an enormous hole through. An immense gap was driven in the Hogue’s side, and there seems to be no doubt that the first torpedo struck her under the aft 9·2in. magazine. That fact would account for the fearful nature of the explosion. As soon as the Hogue had been torpedoed, she began to settle by the stern; then she was quite awash aft, and began to turn turtle. Our ship sank stern first before she heeled over. There was a frightful turmoil as the four immense funnels broke away from their wire stays and went over the side, and the sea got into the stokeholds and sent up dense clouds of steam. The Germans boast about the work having been done by one submarine, but that is nonsense. No single submarine could have done it, because she could not carry enough torpedoes. I am sure that there were at least half-a-dozen submarines in the attack; certainly when I was in the water I saw two rise. They came up right amongst the men who were swimming and struggling, and it was a curious sensation when some of the men felt the torpedoes going through the water under their legs. I did not feel that, but I did feel the terrific shock of the explosion when the first torpedo struck the Cressy ; it came through the water towards us with very great force. We had a fearful time in the cold water. The struggle to keep afloat and alive, the coming up of the submarines, and the rushing through the water of the torpedoes—all that we had to put up with. Then we had something infinitely worse, for the Cressy spotted the submarines, and instantly opened a furious fire upon them. The chief gunner, Mr. Dougherty, saw one of them as soon as her periscope appeared, and he fired, and, I believe, hit the periscope; then he fired again—and again, getting three shots in from a four-pounder within a minute, and when he had done with her, the submarine had made her last dive—and serve her right! The Germans played a dirty game on us, and only a little while before we had done our best to save some of them in the Heligoland Bight, but never a German bore a hand to save the three cruisers’ men from the water. Of course, a sailor expects to be hit anyhow and anywhere in a straight piece of fighting, but this torpedoing of rescue ships was rather cold-blooded, and I don’t think British submarines would have done it. There were some awful sights—but I don’t want to dwell too much on them. Men had been torn and shattered by the explosions and falling things, and there was many a broken leg and broken arm. Great numbers of men had been badly hurt and scalded inside the ship. In the engine-rooms, the stokeholds, and elsewhere, brave and splendid fellows who never left their posts had died like heroes. They never had a chance when the ships heeled over, for they were absolutely imprisoned. When once I had reached the shelter-deck I never tried to go below again; but some of the men did, and they were almost instantly driven out by the force of the huge volumes of water which were rushing into the side through the gaping holes. One man had an extraordinary escape. He had rushed below to get a hammock, and had laid hands on it when the ship heeled over. It seemed as if he must be drowned like a rat in a trap, and would have no chance, but the rush of water carried him along until he reached an entry-port—one of the steel doorways in the ship’s sides—and then he was hurled out of the ship and into the sea, where he had, at any rate, a sporting chance, like the rest of us, of being saved. I saw the three ships turn turtle, and a dreadful sight it was. The Hogue was the first to go—she was not afloat for more than seven minutes after she was struck; then the Aboukir went, but much more slowly—she kept afloat for rather more than half-an-hour; and the last to go was the Cressy . The Cressy heeled over very slowly and was quite a long time before she had completely turned turtle. When that happened the bottom of the ship, which was almost flat for most of its length, was where the deck had been. And on this big steel platform, which was nearly awash, the Captain was standing. I saw him quite clearly—I was not more than forty yards away—and I had seen men walking, running, crawling and climbing down the side of the ship as she heeled over. They either fell or hurled themselves into the sea and swam for it; but the captain stuck to his post to the very last and went down with his ship. It was the old British Navy way of doing things, though probably he could have saved himself if he had taken his chance in the water. One thing which proved very useful in the water, and was the means of saving a number of lives, was a target which had been cast adrift from the Cressy . Targets vary in size, and this was one of the smaller ones, known as Pattern Three, about twelve feet square. It was just the woodwork without the canvas, so it floated well, and a lot of the survivors had something substantial in the way of a raft to cling to. Many of them held on gamely till the end, when rescue came; but other poor chaps dropped off from sheer exhaustion, and were drowned. It must be remembered that not a few of the men had had an experience which was so shattering that, perhaps, there has never been anything like it in naval warfare. They were first torpedoed in the Aboukir , then they were taken to the Hogue and torpedoed in her, and then removed to the Cressy and torpedoed for the third time. Finally they were cast into the sea to take their chance, and, in some cases, they had to float or swim in the water for hours until they were rescued. No wonder it became a question of endurance and holding on more than a matter of swimming. The sea was covered with men who were either struggling for life or holding on to wreckage. The boats were packed, and well they might be, because no effort had been spared to get struggling men into them. The men who were in the best of health and good swimmers were helping those who could not swim, and in this way many a man was saved who would have been lost. When I was in the water I did not utter a word to anybody—it was not worth it, and you needed all your breath; but I never abandoned hope, even when I saw the last ship go down, because I knew that we should have assistance. Wireless calls were made, and appeals for help were being sent out all the time, and when I looked around at all, it was in the hope of seeing some of our own ships tearing down to the rescue. My mind was easy on the point—I knew that the call must have been made, and it was merely a question of time for the response to come. I was supported by a plank and clung to it with all my strength, though from time to time I endured agony from cramp. In spite of the torture I never let go. I gripped my plank, but I saw men near me forced to let go their hold of things they had seized, and they were drowned. In many cases cramp overcame them, and quite near to me were poor fellows who were so contracted with it that they were doubled up in the water, with their knees under their chins. I could see their drawn faces and knotted hands—and in several cases I saw that the grip which was on the floating objects was the grip of death. I floated past these poor chaps, and it was pitiful to see them. Thank God some of the struggling in the water did not last long, because many of the men had been badly burnt or scalded, or hit by heavy pieces of wreckage, and these soon fell away exhausted, and were drowned. Some, too, were dazed and lost their nerve as well as their strength, so that they could not keep up the fight for life. For long after the cruisers had sunk, carrying hundreds of men with them, the sea for a great space was covered with floating bodies—dead sailors, as well as those who had managed to live. Whenever a boat came up I tried to help a man into it; but it was not possible to do anything except with the aid of the boats. The two cutters acted splendidly, picking up all the men they could. Captain Nicholson, of the Hogue , was in charge of one of them, and he did some rousing rescue work. There were some fine deeds of courage and unselfishness that sad morning in the North Sea. The launch and the cutter were packed, of course, and seeing this, and knowing that there were men in the water who were more badly wanting a place in the boat than he was, a Royal Fleet Reserve man, named Farmstone, sprang into the sea and swam for it, to make room for a man who was exhausted. I was thankful indeed when I saw smoke on the horizon—black clouds which showed that some ships were steaming up as hard as they could lick. Very soon, some of our own destroyers—blessed and welcome sight—came into view, and as they did so, I believe, they potted at submarines which were slinking away, but I can’t say with what result. The destroyers came up. The Lucifer , a small cruiser, came up too, and the work of rescue began as hard as it could be carried out, every officer and man working with a will. There were two or three other ships about, two Lowestoft trawlers—which did uncommonly good work—and two small Dutch steamers, one called the Titan and the other the Flora . The next thing that I clearly remember was that I had been hauled out of the bitter-cold water and lifted on board the Flora , and that she was soon packed with half-dead men like myself. The Flora was a very small Dutch cargo boat, and with so many men on board she was crammed. It is impossible to say how some of the men got on board, and they could not explain themselves, they were so utterly exhausted. The Dutch could understand us, though words were hardly necessary, and they shared everything they had—clothes, food, drink and accommodation. They wrapped their bedding round us and gave us hot coffee. The stokehold was crowded with men who had gone down into it to get dry and warm. Some of the men were suffering dreadfully from burns, wounds and exhaustion, and one of them died on board the Flora . He was my next messmate, Green. He lived for only about an hour. I saw him in one of the seamen’s bunks, and he was then in great agony. I think he had been struck very badly in the explosion. We took him away from the bunk, laid him on the fore-hatch and covered him with a tarpaulin, where he lay till about five o’clock in the afternoon, when we landed at Ymuiden. Poor Green was buried there with full honours, the British chaplain at Amsterdam conducting the service. One very strange incident of the disaster was the way in which the ensign of the Hogue was saved. I don’t know how it happened, but one of the stokers who had managed to escape got hold of the ensign when he was in the water, and hung on to it all the time he was in—two or three hours. He had the ensign with him when we were in Holland, and had his photograph taken with it in the background. Another remarkable fact is that four brothers, who came from the Yorkshire coast, I think, were in the Hogue , and all of them were saved! Talking of photographs, I was one of a group which was taken at Ymuiden, when we were rigged out in the kit of Dutch bluejackets. There I am, in the back row. At that time I was wearing a beard and moustache, as there was neither much time not inclination for shaving. We had lost everything we had, and were almost naked, so we were very glad of the clothes that were given to us by the Dutch. These people were kindness itself to us, and did everything they could to make us comfortable and happy. I was taken to a small café and went to bed. A Dutch soldier was in charge of us, but he had no fear of us doing any harm. Next evening they took us by train to a place in the north of Holland; then we had a sixteen miles’ tramp along the level roads to a concentration camp where there were some Belgian prisoners, who gave us a cheer. We marched those sixteen miles whistling and singing. Had we not been snatched from death? We had to rough it, of course, but that came easy after such an experience as ours. There was only one blanket amongst thirteen men, and we had to sleep on straw, and eat with our fingers. We had plenty of food, though—rough, but very nice, and we were very glad of it, and thankful to get a drink of water. Next morning, when we left the straw and solitary blanket, it was very raw and cheerless, and there was a heavy mist. The Belgian prisoners had a football, and we borrowed it and played a game, and got warm. We were covered with straw, and our clothes were filled with it when we woke, but we soon shook it clear when we got going with the ball. We enjoyed a basin of coffee and a big lump of brown bread which [To face p. 180. “GOOD SWIMMERS WERE HELPING THOSE WHO COULD NOT SWIM” ( p. 176 ). the Dutch cook gave us, then we got the time on by turning our tents out, and were quite in clover when the British Consul supplied us with knives, forks, spoons, towels, overcoats and boots. We spent the first morning washing and drying our socks, and wondering what was going to be done with us. We kept on wondering, but soon knew that we were not going to be detained in Holland, but were to be sent home. On the Friday we had definite news that we were to go back to England, and on the Saturday morning we left, and did the sixteen miles’ tramp again; but it was easier this time, because we were prepared for it. We stopped at a farm, and they gave us milk and food, cigars and cigarettes, and before entering a special train for Flushing, the Dutch gave us milk again, and cake, bread and apples. From Flushing we came on to Sheerness, and then we went on leave—and here I am; but I go back in a day or two. I don’t know what will happen, for owing to the explosion the sight of my left eye has practically gone. Besides that, I seem to have been completely shattered in nerves, though I reckoned that I was one of those men who have no nerves—I have been a steeple-jack since I left the Navy, and just before I was called up I was cleaning the face of Big Ben. It is when I wake in the middle of the night, as I often do, that the whole fearful thing comes back with such awful vividness, and I see again the dreadful sights that it is better to forget. Yes, the Germans got three good hauls in the cruisers; but I don’t think they’ll have another chance like it. CHAPTER XV THE RUNAWAY RAIDERS [“Practically the whole fast cruiser force of the German Navy, including some great ships vital to their fleet and utterly irreplaceable, has been risked for the passing pleasure of killing as many English people as possible, irrespective of sex, age or condition, in the limited time available. Whatever feats of arms the German Navy may hereafter perform, the stigma of the baby-killers of Scarborough will brand its officers and men while sailors sail the seas.” So wrote the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston S. Churchill) on December 20th, 1914, in reference to the German raid on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools on December 16th. In that cowardly bombardment of unprotected places, the Huns killed more than a hundred men, women, and children in the Hartlepools alone, and altogether the casualties numbered more than six hundred. This story is based on the narrative of Sapper W. Hall, R.E., one of the few English soldiers who have been under an enemy’s fire on English soil. Sapper Hall was badly wounded.] It is just a fortnight to-day since the German warships came up out of the mist, bombarded Hartlepool, wrecked many of the houses, killed a lot of defenceless women, children and men, and then tore away into the mist as hard as they could steam. Our own warships nearly got up with them, and if it had not been for the mist, never one of those vessels which were so valiant in bombarding helpless towns would have got back to Germany. A great deal of confusion has been caused in telling the story of the raids on the Hartlepools, the two places being hopelessly mixed up. They are, as a matter of fact, quite separate towns, with separate mayors and corporations. Hartlepool itself, where we now are, is on the coast, facing the sea; West Hartlepool is two miles inland. Both towns were bombarded, but it is hereabouts that most of the damage by shells was done, and many children and grown-up people killed. It was just over there, too, that eight Territorials were standing on the front, watching the firing, when a shell struck them and killed seven of the men and wounded the eighth. [2] It was soon after eight o’clock in the morning when we rushed out of our billets into the streets, and, looking seaward, we saw warships firing. In our billets we had heard the booming of guns, and supposing that it was our own warships practising or fighting, we had hurried out to see the fun. A few seconds was enough to tell us that there was no fun in it, but that this was a bombardment in deadly earnest by the enemy. The German ships were easily visible from the shore, and did not seem to be very far away—about two miles. They were firing rapidly, and there was a deafening noise as the shells screamed and burst—the crashing of the explosions, the smashing of immense numbers of window-panes by the concussion, and the thudding of the shells and fragments against walls and buildings. Coming so unexpectedly, the bombardment caused intense excitement and commotion, and men, women and children rushed into the streets to see what was happening—the worst thing they could do, because the splinters of shell, horrible jagged fragments, were flying all about and killing and maiming the people they struck. A number of little children who had rushed into the streets, as children will, were killed or wounded. As soon as we realised what was happening, we rushed back and got our rifles and hurried into the street again, and did what we could; but rifles were absolutely useless against warships, and the incessant bursting of shells and the scattering of fragments and bullets made it most dangerous to be in the open. Shells were striking and bursting everywhere, wrecking houses, ploughing into the ground, and battering the concrete front of the promenade. The houses hereabouts, overlooking the sea, were big and easy targets for the Germans, who blazed away like madmen, though they must have been in terror all the time when they thought that their cannonading was sure to fetch British warships up. How thankful they must have felt for that protecting mist! The Hartlepool Rovers’ Football Ground is very near the sea and the lighthouse, and it came under heavy fire. One of our men, Sapper Liddle, was near the wall of the ground when a shell burst and mortally wounded him, injuring him terribly. It was not possible to get at him and bring him into hospital for a long time, but when he was brought here everything that was humanly possible was done for him. He lingered for a few hours, then died. Meanwhile, death and destruction were being dealt out all around us, and the land batteries were making such reply as they could to the Germans’ heavy guns. This reply was a very plucky performance, for Hartlepool is not a fortified place in anything like the real meaning of the word, and our light guns were no match for the weapons of the German battle-cruisers. As it happened, no damage was done to the guns; but fearful mischief was caused to buildings near us. A shell struck the Baptist Chapel fair and square on the front, and drove a hole in it big enough for the passage of a horse and cart; then it wrecked the inside and went out at the other end of the chapel, again making a huge hole. House after house was struck and shattered, in some cases people being buried in the ruins. Some of the houses are very old, and pretty well collapsed when a shell struck them and burst. While the bombardment was in progress we were doing our best, but that could not be much. There was not much cause for laughter, but I remember that a shell came and burst near us, and made us see the humour of a little incident. The explosion itself did no actual damage, but the concussion and force of it were so violent that a sapper was jerked up into the air and came down with a crash. He picked himself up and scuttled as hard as he could make for shelter. The firing was so sudden and so fierce that it was begun and finished almost before it was possible to realise that it had taken place. Most of the men of Hartlepool were at work when the bombardment started, and some of them were killed at their work, or as they were rushing home to see to their wives and children, while some were killed as they fled for safety. The streets were crowded with fugitives during the bombardment, and it was owing to this that so many people were killed and wounded. The shells burst among them with awful results. While the Germans were firing point-blank at the buildings facing the sea, and deliberately killing inoffensive people, they were also bombarding West Hartlepool, and doing their best to blow up the gasworks, destroy the big shipbuilding yards there, and set fire to the immense stacks of timber which are stored in the yards. People were killed who were five or six miles from the guns of the warships, and in one street alone in West Hartlepool seven persons, mostly women, were killed. Several babies were killed in their homes, and little children were killed as they played in the streets. A good deal has been said about the number of shells that were fired from the German warships, and some people had put down a pretty low total; but from what I saw, I should think that certainly five hundred shells of all sorts were fired by these valiant Germans, who knew that they were perfectly safe so far as the shore was concerned, and took mighty good care not to be caught by British ships of their own size and power; but that will surely come later, and the men of the North will get their own back. I cannot say anything about the actual defences, or what the military did; but the few troops who were here did their best, and a couple of destroyers bore a brave part in the affair. A shell fell in the lines of the Royal Engineers, and several dropped in the lines of the 18th Service Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. It was very quickly known, as I have mentioned, that seven out of eight men of the Durhams, who were watching the firing—thinking, like everybody else, that it was some sort of battle practice, till they learned the real truth—had been killed by the explosion of a shell, and that the eighth man had been wounded; but there were several other cases of men being wounded which were not known about until later, because of the great difficulties of discovering the men amongst the ruins which the shell-fire had caused. From the moment the bombardment began there was an awful commotion, and the noise grew until it was simply deafening. The whole town literally shook, and while the firing lasted there was a tremendous and continuous vibration—everything shivered and rattled. One shell struck the wall of the football ground, which faces the sea; not far away a hole was dug in the ground by one of the very first of the shells that were fired; the fine old church of St. Hilda was damaged, and the side of the rectory was simply peppered by a bursting shell. In the particular place where I and my chums were, the shells were coming in a shower, and doing enormous mischief. We could see that plainly enough. But it was not until later, when the German warships had steamed away as hard as they could go, that we knew how great the damage had been, and how many lives had been lost and people wounded. The German ships fired from one side to begin with, then they turned round and continued the bombardment from the other side, so they must have been ready loaded all round. The size of the shots varied from the 12-inch shells, perfect monsters, to the small ones which came so fast and did so much havoc. The fact that some of the huge shells were found unexploded after the bombardment proves that ships of great size took part in the raid. Some time after the firing began I felt a blow on my thigh, and fell to the ground, helpless, though I did not know at the time what had happened. At last, when the firing—which continued for about forty minutes—ceased, stretcher-bearers and volunteer ambulance workers set about collecting the wounded, and I was picked up and brought to the hospital here. It was then found that I had been struck on the thigh by part of the cap of a shell, and that I had sustained a compound fracture. The piece of metal was still sticking in me—you can see it later. It was taken out, and I was promptly and most kindly looked after, as were all our men who had been wounded and were brought in. Poor Liddle, as I have told you, was not discovered for some time; then he was found and brought here, and died late at night, in spite of all the efforts that were made to save him. He had a real soldier’s funeral—just as had the rest of the soldiers who had been killed. As soon as the bombardment was over the people set to work to collect the dead as well as save the wounded, and both were heavy tasks; but there [To face p. 188. “THE ‘HOGUE’ BEGAN TO TURN TURTLE. THE FOUR IMMENSE FUNNELS BROKE AWAY” ( p. 173 ). were many willing hands. Even in half-an-hour a wonderful difference had been made in the streets, and those people who had been rushing towards the country for safety began to return. They brought in reports of losses which had been suffered in the outskirts through shells; but, as I have said, the worst cases of all were just about here. One house was completely demolished, and the father, mother, and half-a-dozen children were killed, so that home and family were wiped out in an instant. One part of the Old Town is so utterly destroyed that it is called “Louvain,” and if you look at the houses there you will find that they are just heaps of rubbish and ruins, with beds and furniture and so on, buried. Shells had exploded in the streets, in houses, fields, at the gasworks, in shipyards—anywhere and everywhere—and one big thing stuck itself in a house and is kept as a relic. Another crashed through four railway waggons, and another shell, which travelled low on the ground, went through several sets of the steel metals on the railway, which shows the fearful penetrative power of the projectile. If the Germans had had their way, no doubt this place would have been wiped out altogether. They made a dead set at the gasworks, but did not do a great deal of mischief there, though it meant that that night a lot of people had to burn candles instead of gas. And though more than a hundred people were killed, and the Germans fondly supposed that they had struck terror into the place, they had done nothing of the sort. The residents were soon clearing up the ruins and settling down again as if nothing had happened. The most pitiful of all the tasks was that of dealing with the dead and wounded children, and the remembrance of the sad sights will be the best of all inspirations for some of our fellows when the day comes on which they will get their own back from the Germans. It was not long before we learned that at about the same time as we were being shelled at Hartlepool, German warships had appeared off the entirely undefended places of Whitby and Scarborough. They call these old fishing ports fortified, but that is an absolute untruth, and they know it. But the Germans were out to kill and destroy, and they did both in a manner which showed that they had made calculations to a minute, and that their spies had been long at work. At Scarborough the raiders did a lot of damage before they ran away. They had prepared one of their boasted surprises for us, and we got it; but that was nothing to the surprise we gave them on Christmas morning at Cuxhaven—a real fortified place—and nothing, I hope and believe, to the surprises that our Navy has in store for the German naval runaways. You ask how long shall I be in hospital. That is hard to tell; but I have been here two weeks already, and I suppose that I shall be here for at least six weeks longer. I keep the piece of shell which struck me, in a bit of brown paper in the cupboard near the head of the bed. I cannot rise to get it myself, but if you will open the little door you will find it. It’s the sort of thing which caused such havoc in the Hartlepools when the German warships came and bombarded us. CHAPTER XVI CAMPAIGNING WITH THE HIGHLANDERS [The Highland regiments have made a great impression upon the Germans since the war began, and the kilted troops have added to their laurels in the field. This story of fighting with the Highlanders is told by Private A. Veness, 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, who was wounded and invalided home.] I have served eight years in the Seaforth Highlanders. To begin with I was a bandsman, but when the war broke out and I was recalled to the colours, I became an ordinary private, and the only music that the Germans heard me play was the rattle of my rifle. When we landed in France and marched off to the front the girls seemed to have a special fancy for the kilted men—at any rate they crowded up and hugged and kissed those they could get hold of; so we went off in very good spirits, singing and whistling popular tunes, not forgetting the Marseillaise and “Tipperary.” Being a strange country we saw a good many things that were new and very strange to us till we got used to them. One amusing incident happened as soon as we were in Belgium, and that was the sight of a big fat man being pulled in a little cart by two dogs. It was funny, but still it made us angry, for we rather looked upon it as cruelty to animals; so we shouted, “Lazy brute!” “Get out and give the dogs a ride!” and so on, and I daresay the man was greatly surprised, though he didn’t know what we were saying. In a little while we understood that dogs are extensively used for haulage purposes in Belgium and we ceased to take any special notice of them. It was not long after landing before we were told to be ready for the Germans, but that proved a false alarm. We were, however, to get our baptism of fire in a dramatic fashion, and that baptism naturally dwells in my mind more vividly than many of the far bigger things which happened later in the war. A terrific thunderstorm broke, and a party of us were ordered to billet in a barn. We climbed up into a loft and began to make ourselves comfortable and to make some tea. We had scarcely got the welcome tea to our lips when the hurried order came to clear out of the building, and into the thunderstorm we dashed. Then the German shells began to fly and burst, and in a few minutes the barn was struck and shattered, so that we had a very narrow escape. It was at this stage that we had our first man killed. He was a chum of mine, a bandsman, named Dougal McKinnon. While we were having our tea Dougal was under cover in the trenches, in front of the barn, with his company. They were under shell fire, and he was killed by bursting shrapnel. He was buried close to the spot where he fell, and being the first of our men to be killed in action we felt it very deeply. Many times after that, when our chums were killed, we had to leave them, because we had no time to bury them. We got on the move, and when night came it was awful to see the whole countryside lit up with the flames of burning buildings—farms and houses and other places which had been set on fire by the Germans. There was a farm which was blazing furiously and I shall never forget it, for the good reason that in marching we managed to circle it three times before we could get properly on the march and go ahead. We pushed on to Cambrai, where the cannonading was truly terrible. My company was in support of another company in advance. We lay behind a bank, sheltering, for a few hours. At the back of us was a British howitzer battery, in a bit of a wood, so that we were between two awful fires. It was indescribable—the deafening din, which never ceased or lessened while the duel raged, the excitement, the danger, and the nerve-strain; yet there was something fascinating in watching the firing and wondering what was going to happen. It is wonderful to think of the working of the human mind at such a time, and strange to recall the odd things one does. In our own case, as we had to go on sheltering and watching, we amused ourselves by counting the number of shells that dropped within a certain area which was well under our observation. The area was, roughly speaking, about 200 yards square, and in three-quarters of an hour no fewer than seventy-six shells exploded over that particular spot. They were shrapnel and high explosive and never struck the ground—they burst in the air, and at one time I counted six shells bursting in the air together. That gives you some idea of the tremendous nature of the German shell fire. Luckily a great number of the shells did not explode at all, or few if any of us could have got away. It is impossible to praise too highly the British artillery’s work. To my own personal knowledge there was one battery that day—I don’t know which it was—which was under fire for at least seven hours continuously without shifting; and during the whole of that time they were replying to the German guns. After that shattering experience we camped in a cornfield at night, and were settling down to sleep when were we ordered to move again. For hours, worn and weary though we were, we were on the march, and thankful we were when we halted in a village and got a box of biscuits from the French as a midday snack. We had been forced to part with most of our equipment and many of the greatcoats were thrown away; but I felt that I should want mine and I stuck to it—and I am wearing it now. It has had plenty of rough usage—and here are the holes made by a piece of flying shrapnel. I am proud to say that the general in command of our division congratulated the regiment on its splendid marching, and I think we did a fine thing, for in about twelve hours we covered about thirty-two miles—actual marching, with just a halt here and there. The Germans had done their best to trap us, but they had not succeeded, and we escaped, to turn the tables on them with a vengeance. That night I had to report sick—there was something wrong with my ankles. I was unable to march, so I got a lift on a limber-waggon of the 88th Battery of the Royal Field Artillery. During the ride, which lasted all night, I went through some of the finest country I ever saw. It was particularly beautiful because of the time of the year, late autumn, and the clear light of the full moon. This moonlight ride on a limber will be always associated in my memory with the grandest spectacle of its sort I saw during the war. The battery was travelling along a switchback road, and I was wrapped up in the beautiful and peaceful scenery—it was hard to believe that this calm landscape was the scene of war and that the splendid British gunners I was with had been dealing death and destruction amongst the Germans so lately. Not far away was a river, winding like a silver thread over the face of the country, and suddenly, from the river, there rose an immense mass of flame and smoke, followed quickly by a thunderous rumbling roar. I knew at once that a bridge had been blown up. I cannot tell you who destroyed it—Germans or French; all I know is that I saw the sight and it was the most remarkable of its kind that I witnessed—and I saw four splendid bridges destroyed in this manner. At one time we had crossed a fine bridge and as soon as we had done so a hole was dug and a mine was laid in the centre. Then our cyclist section was sent out to report what was going to happen and the bridge was blown up. In this case we were the last to cross before the explosion occurred. At an early stage of the operations I was lucky enough to see a very fine fight in the air, a duel between a French airman and a German airman. I was able to follow the duel for miles. The men in the aeroplanes were firing revolvers at each other and we could hear the crack of the shots, though we could not see any definite results, because the duel got too far away. This was the first fight in the air that I saw, and I watched it with extraordinary interest, especially as we all keenly hoped that the German would be brought down, because he had been flying over our lines and quickly directed shell fire on us owing to his signals. For fully twenty minutes I watched this air fight. It was wonderful to see the swiftness with which the machines dived and dodged. The Frenchman circled over the German in the most skilful and daring manner and time after time threatened his existence. Another remarkable incident I witnessed at this time was the escape of a German cavalryman. He was an Uhlan, a scout, I take it, and quite alone. We were on the march and had been told that the German cavalry were in large numbers near us, and so that we should be ready for them we took up a position, with some Irish infantry to the left of us. We were lying in position on a hill, and in front of us was three or four miles of good flat country, so that we should have had a fine view of cavalry in force. We watched and waited, but the threatened cavalry did not come—all we saw was this solitary Uhlan, a mere speck on the wide plain. As soon as the Uhlan was seen the rifles rattled and it was expected that he would be potted; but he seemed to bear a charmed life. The Irish battalion gave him a particularly heavy fire—the Seaforths were too far off to reach him with the rifle; but the Uhlan galloped gaily on, and it was quite amusing to watch him. No doubt he thoroughly enjoyed himself—at any rate he galloped unscathed across two or three miles of open country, and got away. It was not until we were within about eighteen miles of Paris that the retirement ended and we began the offensive. We had had a very hard time, and were to have a few days’ rest, but we never got it. Yet in spite of the hardships we had some very pleasant times, because of the beauty of the country and the season. Joyful indeed was the day when we began to drive the Germans back, and it was the more joyful because the advance was almost as swift as our retirement had been. On that wonderful advance we saw some horrible things—I will not dwell on German barbarities, though there were many proofs of them—including great numbers of horses which had been killed or wounded and left just where they had fallen. No attempt had been made to dispose of the decaying carcases and many a poor brute had died a lingering death. I was greatly struck by the Germans’ cruelty to their horses, in leaving them like this; but that was one proof of the hurriedness of the enemy’s retreat—the Germans who had got so near Paris and were then flung right away back from the city. I need hardly say that whenever a sign of movement was noticed in a horse a man was sent to put the poor thing out of its misery. There was still plenty of hardship to put up with, but that did not matter so much when we were driving back the Germans. I remember very well one day and night of uncommon wretchedness. It was raining heavily and continuously, and in the deluge I and three more men were sent on outpost—to observe and keep our eyes open, and so that we could do that to the best advantage we took up a position on the top of a hayrick. A perfect hurricane was blowing, and the almost solid rain was fairly driven into us; but we stuck it through, and hung on to the top of the haystack till it was dark, then we thankfully got down and went into an open shed for shelter—a building that was just a protection for wheat-stacks. I had had my turn of picketing and was lying down to get a snatch of sleep when I was ordered to go up a road about a mile and a half away, to find out whether our relief had come. So out into the darkness and the wind and rain I staggered and fought my way through what was the worst night for weather that I ever saw. On and on I and my comrades went, looking hard for our relief, but we never saw it, and we waited there till next morning, when we rejoined our brigade. Those were times when there was little rest for the Seaforths, or anybody else. The aeroplanes gave us little chance of rest, and at times they had an uncanny knack of finding us. One day, after a long, hard march, we put into a wood for shelter. A French supply column was already in the wood and doubtless the Germans knew of or suspected this; at any rate a German aeroplane came over us, with the result that in a few minutes we were shelled out. We rested in another part of the wood till it was dark, then we were taken on to billets, but we had to make another move, because we were shelled out again. That was the sort of thing which came along as part of the day’s work; and as part of the day’s work we took it cheerfully. When we got the Germans on the move we took prisoners from time to time. I was on guard over a few prisoners, part of a crowd, when one of them came up to me and to my amazement I recognised him as a German who had worked in Soho Square and used often to go to the same place as myself for dinner—a little shop in Hanway Street, at the Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. The prisoner recognised me at once and I recognised him. To show how ignorant the Germans were of the enemy they were fighting, I may tell you that this man said to me, “If we had known we were fighting the English, I would never have left London!” Was it not strange that the two of us, who had so often met as friends for dinner in the little foreign shop, should meet again as enemies on the banks of the Marne? I am now coming to a sorrowful personal incident—the loss of my chum, Lance-Corporal Lamont. We had been together from the beginning of the war and had shared everything there was, even to the waterproof sheet. He would carry the sheet one day and I would carry it the next, and whenever such a thing had to be done as fetching drinking-water, often a very dangerous task, we would share that too. Throughout one awful night of ceaseless rain, which soaked us to the skin, the two of us were in the trenches—we had dug ourselves in, with just ordinary head cover. We lay there till next morning, when an officer came along my platoon and asked if we had any drinking-water. We told him that we had not. The officer said, “If you care to risk it, one of you can go and fetch some water.” We decided to take the risk, which was great, because to get the water meant getting to a farmhouse just behind us, under a heavy fire. My chum volunteered to go, and, taking the water-bottles, he left the trench and started to cross the open ground between us and the farmhouse. While he was doing this the order came for us to advance—and I never saw him again. It was soon my turn to be put out of action. A pretty stiff fight was going on and the fire was so heavy that it was very dangerous to be in the open; but it was necessary for me and a few more men to cross a bit of open ground, and we made a start. We had not gone far when a shell came between me and another man who was at my side. The shell struck him fair on the arm and shattered it. He fell over on his side, and as he did so he said, “For Heaven’s sake cut my equipment off!” I took out my jack-knife and slit the equipment across the shoulders and let it drop away from him. He crawled off and I was told afterwards that while he was trying to creep to shelter he was struck again and killed. I crawled as best I could up to the firing line, but when I got there I found that there was no room in the trenches for me, so I had to lie in the open. I had not been there long before a fellow next to me asked me what time it was. I took out my watch and told him it was about eleven-fifteen—and the next thing I knew was that I felt as if someone had kicked me on the top of the head. I turned round and said, “Tommy, I’m hit!” I became unconscious for some time, then, when I recovered, I said, “Tommy, is it safe to crawl away?” “No,” said Tommy, “it’s risky. It’s a bit too hot!” “Never mind,” I answered. “If I stay here much longer I shall collapse. I’m going to have a shot at it—here goes!” I began to crawl away, but I must have taken the wrong direction, for I was soon under two fires. I was approaching the mouths of two or three of our own guns, which were in front of a farmhouse. I soon found that this was a bit too warm for me, and so I turned and took what I supposed was the right direction. I had had enough of crawling, which was very slow work. I wanted to get out of it, and I made up my mind to rise and run. That does not sound very brave, but it was the better part of valour. I started to run, as best I could; but I had hardly got going when a bullet struck me, as I supposed, and I collapsed alongside some of my own comrades. Stretcher-bearers came up, in time, and I was carried to the field hospital. Then a curious discovery was made, which was, that a bullet had gone through four or five pleats of my kilt and had stuck in my leg, high up. This is the place where it struck and stuck and here’s the bullet, which the doctor easily pulled out with his fingers, for it had not penetrated deeply, owing, I think, to the resistance of the pleats of my kilt. Apart from this bullet wound I was struck by shrapnel four times, but I managed to keep going. I left the field hospital the next day and joined an ambulance column which was shelled by the Germans as it went along. I escaped myself, but one of the waggons was completely wrecked. Having recovered from my wound to a certain extent I went back to the regiment, but after a few days I had to be invalided home, and I have had a long and tedious spell in hospital. There is one more incident I would like to mention by way of closing. We halted in a village in France where we saw some of the Turcos, one of whom was very noticeable because he was proudly wearing the greatcoat of a German officer which he had secured on the battlefield, after killing the officer. While we halted, a batch of German prisoners was brought into the village, and they were put into a courtyard between two rows of cottages. No sooner had this been done than an old man rushed out, and if it had not been for the guard he would have hurled himself upon the prisoners and done his best to thrash them. The act was so strange that I inquired the reason for the old man’s fury. And the answer I received was, “He remembers 1870.”

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