Among numerous other such letters that have been published up and down the country is this in which a corporal of the North Lancashire Regiment gives a graphic little picture of his experiences to the _Manchester City News_:
When we got near Mons the Germans were nearer than we expected. They must have been waiting for us. We had little time to make entrenchments, and had to do the digging lying on our stomachs. Only about 300 of the 1,000 I was with got properly entrenched. The Germans shelled us heavily, and I got a splinter in the leg. It is nearly right now, and I hope soon to go back again. We lost fairly heavily, nearly all from artillery fire. Altogether I was fighting for seventy-two hours before I was hit. The German forces appeared to be never-ending. They were round about us like a swarm of bees, and as fast as one man fell, it seemed, there were dozens to take his place.
There is one in which James Scott, reservist, tells his relatives at Jarrow that British soldiers at Mons dropped like logs. The enemy were shot down as they came up, but it was like knocking over beehives--a hundred came up for every one knocked down. He thought the Germans were the worst set of men he had ever seen. Their cavalry drove women and children in front of them in the streets of Mons so that the British could not fire.
A wounded non-commissioned officer of the Pompadours, whose regiment left Wembley Park a week before the fighting began, says that in the four days’ battle commencing at Mons on the Sunday, August 23rd, and lasting until August 26th, they were continually under fire:
We had to beat off several cavalry attacks as well as infantry, and when the trouble seemed to be over the Germans played on us with shrapnel just like turning on a fire hose. Several of our officers were hit on Wednesday. Heavy German cavalry charged us with drawn sabres, and we only had a minute’s warning “to prepare to receive cavalry.” We left our entrenchments, and rallying in groups, emptied our magazines into them as they drew near. Men and horses fell in confused heaps. It was a terrible sight. Still, on they came. They brought their naked sabres to the engage, and we could distinctly hear their words of command made in that piercing, high tone of voice which the Germans affect.