I felt sure this
wood was full of Germans, as I had seen them go in earlier. I started
to gallop for it, and the others followed. Suddenly about fifty
Germans bolted out, firing at us. I loosed off my revolver as fast
as I could, and ---- loosed off his rifle from the saddle. They
must have thought we were a regiment of cavalry, for, except for
a few, they suddenly yelled and bolted. I stopped and dismounted
my lot to fire at them, to make sure that they didn't change their
minds.
"I waited for a lull, and mounted all my lot behind the bushes
and made them spring as I gave the word to gallop for cover to the
woods where the Welsh company was. There I got ----, who understands
them (the guns), and an infantryman who volunteered to help, and
---- and I ran up to the Maxims and took out the breech mechanism
of both and one of the belts, and carried away one whole Maxim.
We couldn't manage the other.
"We got back very slowly on account of the gun, and the men went wild
with excitement that we had got one gun complete and the mechanism
and belt of the other."
With such incidents the pursuit of the Germans across the Marne
and to the Aisne was replete, and so thoroughly did the advance
French and English troops scour that country that when the morning
of September 13, 1914, dawned there was scarcely a German soldier
left on the southern side of the Aisne, west of Rheims.
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