Show CAVALRY CHARGE VERY THRILLING officer of deacan horse tells I 1 ells how mounted men got into action DID NOT WANT PRISONERS but eight germans who threw away awa their rifles and called pity were taken alive under fierce fire london during the first two years u ui the war cavalry played no part in the great battles fought on the western front the men of tills this arrn arm of the ser sen ice were N ere used in the trenches trencher to re enforce the infantry recently however we the cavalry got its chance and how well the mounted arm responded Is indicated in a letter written by nu an officer otellie famous deacan horse of 0 the british niney to his wife in ir land the letter reads at 6 30 NN t e started our famous ride into the enemy country every now and then corning coining under heavy shell fire shrapnel and high explosive no one can believe without seeing what a state the ground Is in there la Is not room for a table cloth on any part of the lie ground there without some part of it touching a shell hole so you can imagine the regiment galloping over it at full gallop barbed wire well cut by shell fire old trenches dead bodies and every sort of debris lying in every dire direction cUon words tall fall me to describe it bring down balloon that was for about three miles then full tilt down a steep bank like the laggard field but steeper into a very famous valley where the shrapnel got worse as we were spotted by one of their sausage balloons this was wag soon driven down by the fire of our batteries which just smothered it with shrapnel on we went past the remains of guns and every everything thin g tons of ammunition and abandoned material lad and dead germans everywhere and we passed here an enormous gun they had left behind so really I 1 suppose it was us that took it we were under cover here for halt half a mile but suddenly coming out of the valley we had to turn sharp to the right up another little litlie valley and here we came under terrific but rather inaccurate machine gun fire bre from two directions it was now about in the ev fling and there were 24 aeroplanes aero planes hovering over us and one monoplane came down to about feet and fired his machine guns guna on the germans just over us going round and round the finest sight I 1 have ever seen well we moved out under a heavy fire and got on about half a mile during this advance we rounded up eight prisoners while between us and the british regiment I 1 we stuck with sword and lance about forty of them a glorious slight sight our men were splendid and am want to take any prisoners but these eight had chucked away their arms so we very well do them in they were simply terrified and one clung on to my leg and kept calling pity I 1 pity his eyes starting out of his head poor devil I 1 pitted pitied him and we sent him back to the regiment we dismounted in a little hollow then and went on on foot through a good crop of wheat full of shell holes and dead germans of course we were creeping all tho the way as the fire was very hot at last after going a quarter of a mile we got to the flat top of the hill driving them before us here we had to stop as the ground was being swept by rifle and machine gun fire and they were now shelling us heavily we got our hotchkiss guns guna into action and set to work not a health healthy y spot by crawling slowly forward we got a field of fire and could see cheger mans plainly and a battery about half a mile ahead we plugged a few here and then it happened to get dark and we had to retire about yards to a better bette r position and dig in for the night this we did all right the germans making a feeble charge as aa we did it I 1 was along at the time with a message so I 1 let fly six rounds at them with my revolver and they all lay down however it was waa not a healthy spot and ahad I 1 had to crawl back and rejoined the squadron we got our horses and came back and rejoined the regiment one shell landed in the middle of us as we mounted these tin hats are good especially for shrapnel well we got back and dug in like blazes they made two weak attacks during the night and shelled us all the time we hung on there until four put up wire la in front of us and our battery helped us well infantry relieved us then them they had bad just got up you see our job was to push on as tar far as we could and hold bold the line to give the feet time to get up so we did our job all right we then rode back but not the GOO COO |