dent that we must leave these guns behind and continue
the retreat, an officer was seen going around putting the guns out of
action, so that they would be of no use to the Germans. His action
required cool bravery, because the Germans, having found the range,
continued firing directly at these batteries.

"Things rapidly got hotter, and the commanding officer ordered a
double-quick retreat. We were not long in doing the retiring movement to
save our own skins.

"I was wounded at this time by a Maxim bullet. For a moment I thought
my head had been blown off, but I recovered and kept on running until
I reached a trench, where I had an opportunity to bandage the wound. I
rushed off to the ambulances, but found the doctors so busy with men
worse off than I that I went back to my place in the line."

THE BATTLE AT CHABLEROI

The loss of life in the Franco-German battle near Charleroi was
admittedly the greatest of any engagement up to that time. It was at
Charleroi that the Germans struck their most terrific blow at the
allies' lines in their determination to gain the French frontier. Though
the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for awhile the French were finally
forced to give way and to retreat behind their own frontier, while the
British were being forced back from their position at Mons. The fighting
along the line was of the fiercest kind. It was a titanic clash of
armies in which the allies were compelled to yield ground before the
superior numbers of the German host.

One of the wounded, who was taken to hospital at Dieppe, said of the
fighting at Charleroi:

"Our army was engaging what we believed to be a section of the German
forces commanded by the crown prince when I was wounded. The Germans at
one stage of the battle seemed lost. They had been defending themselves
almost entirely with howitzers from strongly intrenched positions. The
Germans were seemingly surrounded and cut off and were summoned to
surrender. The reply came back that so long as they had ammunition they
would continue to fight.

"The howitzer shells of the Germans seemed enormous things and only
exploded when they struck the earth. When one would descend it would dig
a hole a yard deep and split into hundreds of pieces. Peculiarly enough
the howitzer shells did much more wounding than killing. The other
shells of the Germans, like cartridges, the supply of which they seemed
to be short of, did only little damage.

AEROS CONSTANTLY ABOVE