The narrative, proceeding, states that on the advance of the British to the trenches the enemy had occupied, it was difficult to estimate the number of German dead, for the trenches, filled with bodies, had been covered in with earth. One German was found by the Gordons still standing in his trench, with his rifle to his shoulder, quite dead. He had evidently been shot while in the act of taking aim, and had been left by his retreating comrades. On the advance, it was noted that the work of the British artillery had been particularly deadly, especially among the woods through which the men advanced. The part of the regiment to which the narrator of these events was attached was sent back to headquarters in charge of several hundreds of prisoners, their places in the firing line being taken by others for the time being; and, after a turn at headquarters duty, the Gordons were sent on to Lille and La Bassée, opposite to a part of von Kluck's force, which had in the meantime moved out to the north-west to keep pace with the extension of the Allied line. While the Gordons were lying in an open field, taking part in an attack, the order was given to retire; but it was unheard by the men of some sections, and the enemy advanced so near that the position of some of the men became very critical. But the wretched fire of the German infantry proved their salvation, for sixteen of the Gordons made their way across perfectly level, boggy ground, with the Germans less than 1,000 yards away, and only two were wounded.
The first days on the Aisne, according to another of the Gordons, must be counted as one of the fiercest examples of warfare under modern conditions. For days the Gordons were subjected to such a hurricane of shrapnel fire that they were compelled to lie in their trenches, merely awaiting developments; and many of the men who were wounded by shrapnel never fired their rifles, for the enemy was too far off for rifle fire to have any effect. One man was struck fourteen times by the shrapnel fire, and still came out from the trenches to recover. It was not until the British artillery was reinforced that the infantry were able to advance.
"We were kept so busy," says one man of the Gordons concerning this time, "that for three days and nights we had no time to issue the mail. The men felt the want of a smoke more than of food, and I have seen more than one man trade away his last biscuit for a cigarette or a fill of tobacco. When the heaviest of the shelling was going on, our men were puffing away at 'fag-ends.'"