Page:The drama of three hundred and sixty-five days.djvu/73

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SCENES IN THE GREAT WAR

Eight hundred of his cavalry regiment had ridden full gallop into a solid block of the enemy, making a way through them as wide as Sackville Street. At length the Germans in front had dropped their rifles and held up their hands, whereupon our men had ceased to slay. But, being unable to rein in their frantic horses, they had been compelled to gallop on. Then, while their backs were turned, the treacherous Huns had picked up their rifles and fired on them from behind, killing many of our best men.

"And what did you do then?"

"Turned back and———"

"And what?" "Took one man alive, sor."

"And the rest?"

"Left them there, sor."

"And how many of you got back?"

"Less than two hundred, sor."


CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES
Then Christmas in the trenches—we had glimpses of that, too. The people who governed nations from their Parliament Houses might have doubts about the peace-dream of the poets, the Utopia of universal brotherhood which gleams somewhere ahead in the far future of humanity, but the soldiers on the battlefields, even in the

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