As soon as daybreak appeared, we were ordered off that road; and we had no sooner left it than it was heavily shelled. We dug some more trenches that same day and retired from them just before they were blown up, so we were evidently very fortunate on the twenty-second of August, 1914.
On leaving the road, we retired to a thicket on our left rear, but quitted it, and came to the trenches aforementioned. Two batteries were just behind us there, and they were having a bad time. Also while there the Scots Greys, who were our brigade scouts, came in with a report of meeting with a body of Uhlans. They had evidently surprised these Uhlans, and had given them a warm time, the losses of the Scots Greys being only one man, I believe, and two wounded. As I pointed out before, we left those trenches in the nick of time; they were not the trenches we have now in France, but only what we call "one-man trenches"--very little more than head cover, dug with our entrenching tools and no good whatsoever against shell fire.
After retiring from them we were kept on the side of the road for the night; and for the next few days were rushed from one position to another.
Early one morning we set off to guard a bridge, and, after going a mile or so, we were again placed in a field. On the way we were handed some corned beef and biscuits, also a grocery ration, i.e. a tin of tea and sugar and two Oxo cubes, by some A.S.C. men who had been left with orders to issue them to troops going into action. One of them handed me mine with the remark: "You'll need it, old man, where you're going!" Very cheerful, I thought.
We then advanced over some open fields in Artillery formation, the Scots Greys going first, probing all hedges with their swords. In this field we were told to line the hedges.
Two incidents worth relating occur to my mind: one was the bravery of one of our flying-men--he had just flown over the German lines, and on coming back was being shelled by the German batteries--how he escaped being hit I cannot think, as shells were bursting no less than a dozen at once all around him, and the fragments of shells were dropping around us everywhere, though no one was hit. Our Colonel, highly pleased with the steadiness of the aviator, remarked that he felt proud to be an Englishman.