It was a blazing hot Sunday, and the place was Mons. We had got into camp about one on the Saturday afternoon, and had billeted till four on the Sunday morning, when we were ordered to harness up and prepare for action, but we did not receive actual fighting orders until noon; then we had to march into a place in the neighbourhood, and as soon as we reached it German shells burst over us.
That was the beginning of a long and terrible battle. We went straight into it, without any warning; but the Germans were ready, and knew what to expect, because they had been waiting for us for forty-eight hours.
It was field artillery we were up against. The Germans at that time had not got the big siege guns, which we called Black Marias, Jack Johnsons and Coal Boxes. I will tell you about them later.
We, the drivers, took the guns up into action, then we retired under cover with the horses. While we were retiring the bullets from the German shells were dropping all around us, and farther away our men at the guns and the other troops were carrying on that desperate fight against immense odds which will be always known as the battle of Mons. From start to finish we were heavily outnumbered, but we knocked them out.
We were soon hard at it, pounding away, while our infantry were simply mowing the Germans down. We had some terrible fire to put up with, and at the end of about four hours we were forced to retire from the position. At that time we were the only battery left in action out of the whole of our brigade.
An officer was sent to reconnoitre, to see where we could retire to, and he picked out a little valley, a sort of rain-wash, and the battery thundered into it. This was a hard place to tackle, and all our attention was needed to keep the horses from falling down, because the ground was so rough and steep.
So far we had not seen any of the German infantry at close quarters, but as soon as we had got into the level of the valley we ran into a lot of them, and saw that we were ambushed. In this ambush I had one of the experiences that were so common in the retreat, but I was lucky enough to come out of it safely. Many gallant deeds were done there which will never be officially known--for instance, when we were going through the valley and were being heavily fired on, and it seemed as if there was no chance for us, Corporal Holiday ran the gauntlet twice to warn us that the enemy had us in ambush.