Thus, discursively, a wounded Cameron man told of the incidentals of the fighting in France--the earlier days. Then comes a fairly detailed account of the battle of the Marne, in which the first three days, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, are described as "pretty much preliminary," but on Tuesday the brigade of which the Camerons formed a part went out to meet the enemy, and drove them back, capturing about six hundred prisoners and eight guns. The ground was sodden with rain, and the Camerons lay out in the harvest fields taking cover behind the standing sheaves of corn, while the German artillery rained out shells on them, not even stopping when their own infantry advanced on the British troops. "We got it very rough, and a man beside me--one of our battalion--went out to help an officer who was badly wounded, but just as he got up to the officer he dropped. Our fellows were falling all round, and at about ten in the morning I got my dose. During the day the fighting round where I was lying fell off a bit, but I had to lay on the ground until dark, when another chap, who saw I couldn't move, came over to make me a bed of straw and get me comfortable. But before he could get my bed made a bullet got him through the spine, and he tumbled over in a heap--stone dead. I was lucky to get out of it, for the Germans were firing on our ambulance men. They had snipers lying among our wounded, and that night, when stretcher bearers came out to carry in the wounded officer, three of the bearers were shot. It was Wednesday morning before I was picked up by a picket of the Coldstream Guards."
At the beginning of the battle of the Aisne, the Camerons were brought up to advance in skirmishing order under shell fire, when one man was wounded by shell fire, and fell back behind a haystack. Some other wounded also sought the shelter of the haystack, whereupon the Germans immediately began to shell it, and the wounded men sought other shelter, to fall in with a convoy of thirty German prisoners. Finally they found the transport column, and were taken back to a hospital established in a village in rear of the firing line--but this hospital was already full up. No less than thirty-two shells were aimed directly at this hospital, though it had a Red Cross flag flying over it all the time. This hospital was cleared, and two hours after the patients had been removed it was utterly destroyed by shell fire.