1914 (British Ace) by Griff Hosker Read Free Book Online Page B

that the lieutenant was a little more hot and bothered than he had been. I saluted as he rode up, “No sign of any Germans sir. Ypres is probably an hour or so down the road.”
    The lieutenant took out his pocket watch, “Hm, I think that we will return to camp and make our report.  We can ride to Ypres in the morning.  Er, well done Corporal Harsker.”
    I took my four men to the rear of the column and we ate the others ’ dust on the way back. I had learned much on that first ride but I wished we had seen a German.  The war just didn’t seem real.
    When we reached our camp we saw that it had grown.  There was another Yeomanry regiment there, the Cumbrian Hussars. We were now a brigade. The rest of the regiment had had an easy day organising the camp.  The lieutenant rushed off to report to the major while we led the men to the horse lines.  Unlike the lieutenant we still had a lot of work to do.  Carson took two horses.  I was glad that I was not an officer’s servant. One horse was enough for me. I never thought, back at Burscough, that I would think that but I had far more to do out here.
    That even, in the mess, we discovered that our brigade was out on a limb.  The main BEF was many miles away, close to Mons.  It was almost a hundred miles south east of us.  Colonel Mackenzie, according to the word around the camp, was not happy to be stuck out on the periphery of the war. We were just guarding an escape route back to Britain. Lieutenant Ramsden had obviously been chewed out when he sought the sergeant and myself after we had eaten.
    “The colonel wants us to find the Germans tomorrow.  He was disappointed we didn’t reach Ypres.”
    “Perhaps if we went south east we might have more luck sir?”
    “You think so corporal? Well we will leave earlier and push the men on eh?”
    After he had left I wondered what the men would make of it.  Another day in the saddle; we all liked riding but few of us had spent eight hours a day on the back of a horse. I smiled, “I’ll go and give the lads the good news eh sarge?”
    “Aye.   Still they might be better prepared tomorrow.” He grinned, “Don’t forget to tell them to shave a little better tomorrow eh?”
    The men had learned their lesson and we were waiting patiently for the lieutenant to arrive.  I noticed that he was not quite as smartly presented: perhaps Carson had been tired too.  Like us Carson had spent all day in the saddle. We pushed hard towards the south east. An hour into the patrol we heard the unmistakeable thunder of guns.  Poor Tiny thought it was thunder and he looked at the cloudless sky and said to his big brother, “Thunder?”
    “Nay, you dozy bugger.   That’s guns.  We know where the Germans are.”
    Doddy was right it meant the two armies had collided; the question was where? “ Take out your rifles but keep the safety on.  We need to be prepared.”
    There was urgency now to our ride.  I did not bother to send a message back to the rest of the patrol.  They could hear the same guns we could and would be drawing their own conclusions.  I just hoped that the lieutenant would remember to send the message back to the brigade. Failure to do so would result in more than a ticking off. We did not stop for a rest and another hour brought us just past the Belgian town of Heuvelland.  The people there were busy packing their belongings into carts.  None of them spoke English but they kept pointing to the east and shouting, “Boche! Boche!” We all knew that meant Germans.
    “I think we’ll wait here for the rest of the troop. Robbie, take the horses and water them.  You lads come with me.  We’ll go to the edge of town.”
    It was a typical Belgian town.  The houses ended and then there were fields.  We found a house with a walled garden at the end of the road.  It appeared to be deserted. “Get behind the wall and keep your eyes peeled.”
    I did not need to tell them to listen for the guns were cracking