The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade | Page 9

of that horrible hill and I looked at my map. Yes--there certainly was a way round back by the south-east, via the road along which Weatherby and I had just come back from interviewing Haking. So I directed the transport to move that way--there was a road branching off to the right only 400 yards on and quite safe, as I thought, for the firing was up north and north-east, and this road lay south-southeast.
Roe covered the withdrawal with his company and was very anxious to lay an ambush for the enemy. But they did not seem inclined to oblige him, but kept heading off in a more southerly direction. There was no sign from the 3rd Division who, I knew, were on our right; so, as my scouts could not find them, I could only come to the conclusion that the enemy had got in between us, and if we didn't clear out soon we should be in a bad way.
Suddenly there was a crackle of rifles down the road along which the Dorset transport had gone, and then nearly the whole of the transport came galloping back, a dead horse being dragged along in the shafts of one of the waggons. Margetts, the transport officer, rode past, revolver in hand, and streaming with blood from the shoulder, and one or two of the men and horses had obviously been hit. What had happened was that a few Germans had penetrated on to the road where Weatherby and I had passed in perfect safety only a short time before and ambushed the transport.
Margetts had very gallantly ridden direct at the ambush with his revolver, shot down one or two and bewildered the rest, and thus given time for the transport to turn round on the (luckily) broad road and gallop back. The Pioneer Sergeant of the Dorsets was killed, and so was a Brigade Policeman who happened to be with the transport. Otherwise almost the only loss was an ammunition-cart with two horses killed, and some damage was done to a pole and wheel or two of the other vehicles. Poor Nicholson (my servant), who should, strictly speaking, have remained with the Brigade transport and not come up at all, had attached himself to the Dorset transport without orders--wishing, I suppose, to be handy in case he was required--and had been shot down with the two or three others. I believe he was killed; anyway, I never saw him again, poor fellow. Margetts was nearly falling off his horse with pain, so he dismounted and was bandaged by the Medical Officer. But by that time the transport vehicles had disappeared, and as he was fainting and was not in a fit state to be carried, he had to be left in the house of a Belgian doctor and was taken prisoner shortly afterwards. We heard of him later, and I am glad to say his gallant action gained him a D.S.O.
Bols strung out half a company to defend the place where we thought the Germans would appear, but after waiting for ten minutes we found we were practically "in the air," as large forces of the enemy were reported coming round our right flank, and the firing on our left front got more and more to the left, thus proving that the Bedfords had been pushed back and were retiring via Wasmes--as they had been told to do if overwhelmed. Weatherby, who had cantered off to get in touch with them, confirmed this; and as it was getting extremely "hot" (shells) where we were, I gave the order to withdraw--only just in time as it turned out.
The Dorsets formed a proper rear-guard and held off the enemy, who were by this time trickling in large numbers into the town; but by good luck the Germans seemed to funk coming on in formation, and by the time we had got back to the foot of the steep hill they didn't bother us any more except by occasional shells. To my extreme annoyance (in one way) we found another track leading round the hill, towards Warquignies, not marked on the map; so those two wretched inhabitants had told us quite wrong, and we could have retired the transport this way after all. Of course we took advantage of it, and fell back slowly via Warquignies on Blangies, where we arrived, with very few casualties, about two.
Here we got orders at first to bivouac for the night, but hardly had the men had time to cook a meal and eat it than we were ordered to continue the retirement on Bavai St Waast, via Athis. As we got on to the main road here we found a large column of our own troops moving down it, and there were German mounted patrols