It was a spectacular battle, such as we had never seen before, and during the following days, when our troops worked up to Bourlon Wood and through the intervening villages of Anneux, Graincourt, Containg, and Fontaine Notre Dame, I saw tanks going into action and cruising about like landships, with cavalry patrols riding over open ground, airplanes flying low over German territory, and masses of infantry beyond all trench-lines, and streams of liberated civilians trudging through the lines from Marcoing. The enemy was demoralized the first day and made only slight resistance. The chief losses of the tanks were due to a German major of artillery who served his own guns and knocked out a baker’s dozen of these monsters as they crawled over the Flesquières Ridge. I saw them lying there with the blood and bones of their pilots and crews within their steel walls. It was a Highland soldier who checked the German major.
“You’re a brave man,” he said, “but you’ve got to dee,” and ran him through the stomach with his bayonet. It was this check at the Flesquières Ridge, followed by the breaking of a bridge at Masnières under the weight of a tank and the holding of a trench-line called the Rumilly switch by a battalion of Germans who raced to it from Cambrai before our men could capture it, which thwarted the plans of the cavalry. Our cavalry generals were in consultation at their headquarters, too far back to take immediate advantage of the situation. They waited for the capture of the Rumilly switch, and held up masses of cavalry whom I saw riding through the village of Ribecourt, with excitement and exaltation, because they thought that at last their chance had come. Finally orders were given to cancel all previous plans to advance. Only one squadron, belonging to the Canadian Fort Garry Horse in General Seely’s division, failed to receive the order (their colonel rode after them, but his horse slipped and fell before he caught them up), and it was their day of heroic folly. They rode fast and made their way through a gap in the wire cut by the troopers, and came under rifle and machine-gun fire, which wounded the captain and several men.
The command was carried on by a young lieutenant, who rode with his men until they reached the camouflaged road southeast of the village of Rumilly, where they went through in sections under the fire of the enemy hidden in the banks. Here they came up against a battery of field-guns, one of which fired point-blank at them. They charged the battery, putting the guns out of action and killing some of the gunners. Those who were not destroyed surrendered, and the prisoners were left to be sent back by the supports. The squadron then dealt with the German infantry in the neighborhood. Some of them fled, while some were killed or surrendered. All these operations were done at a gallop under fire from flanking blockhouses. The squadron then slowed down to a walk and took up a position in a sunken road one kilometer east of Rumilly. Darkness crept down upon them, and gradually they were surrounded by German infantry with machine-guns, so that they were in great danger of capture or destruction. Only five of their horses remained unhit, and the lieutenant in command decided that they must endeavor to cut their way through and get back. The horses were stampeded in the direction of the enemy in order to draw the machine-gun fire, and while these riderless horses galloped wildly out of one end of the sunken road, the officer and his surviving troopers escaped from the other end. On the way back they encountered four bodies of the enemy, whom they attacked and routed. On one occasion their escape was due to the cunning of another young lieutenant, who spoke German and held conversations with the enemy in the darkness, deceiving them as to the identity of his force until they were able to take the German troops by surprise and hack a way through. This lieutenant was hit in the face by a bullet, and when he arrived back in Masnières with his men in advance of the rearguard he was only able to make his report before falling in a state of collapse.
Other small bodies of cavalry—among them the 8th Dragoons and 5th Hussars—had wild, heroic adventures in the Cambrai salient, where they rode under blasts of machine-gun fire and rounded up prisoners in the ruined villages of Noyelles and Fontaine Notre Dame. Some of them went into the Folie Wood nearby and met seven German officers strolling about the glades, as though no war was on. They took them prisoners, but had to release some of them later, as they could not be bothered with them. Later they came across six ammunition-wagons and destroyed them. In the heart of the wood was one of the German divisional headquarters, and one of our cavalry officers dismounted and approached the cottage stealthily, and looked through the windows. Inside was a party of German officers seated at a table, with beer mugs in front of them, apparently unconscious of any danger near them. Our officer fired his revolver through the windows and then, like a schoolboy who has thrown a stone, ran away as hard as he could and joined his troop. Youthful folly of gallant hearts!
After the enemy’s surprise his resistance stiffened and he held the village of Fontaine Notre Dame, and Bourlon Wood, on the hill above, with strong rearguards. Very quickly, too, he brought new batteries into action, and things became unpleasant in fields and villages where our men, as I saw them on those days, hunted around for souvenirs in
