ets when a pal shouted, "Up, Guards, and at 'em!"
The next second he was rolled over with a nasty knock on the
shoulder. He jumped up and hissed, "Let me get at them!" His
language was a bit stronger than that.

When we really did get the order to get at them we made no
mistake, I can tell you. They cringed at the bayonet, but
those on our left wing tried to get around us, and after
racing as hard as we could for quite five hundred yards we cut
up nearly every man who did not run away.

You have read of the charge of the Light Brigade. It was new
to our cavalry chaps. I saw two of our fellows who were
unhorsed stand back to back and slash away with their swords,
bringing down nine or ten of the panic-stricken devils. Then
they got hold of the stirrup-straps of a horse without a rider
and got out of the melee. This kind of thing was going on all
day.

In the afternoon I thought we should all get bowled over, as
they came for us again in their big numbers. Where they came
from goodness knows; but as we could not stop them with
bullets they had another taste of the bayonet. My Captain, a
fine fellow, was near to me, and as he fetched them down he
shouted, "Give them socks, my lads!" How many were killed and
wounded I don't know; but the field was covered with them.

It is also of the four days' battle that Private J.R. Taft of the Second
Essex Regiment wrote. How typical of real life, as distinct from
romance, is his ready transition from his devout thanksgiving for his
safety to his amused recollection of the popular song that rose above
the crash of shot and shell:

We were near Mons when we had the order to intrench. It was
just dawn when we were half way down our trenches, and we were
on our knees when the Germans opened a murderous fire with
their guns and machine guns.

We opened a rapid fire with our Maxims and rifles; we let them
have it properly, but no sooner did we have one lot down than
up came another lot, and they sent their cavalry to charge us,
but we were there with our bayonets, and we emptied our
magazines on them. Their men and horses were in a confused
heap. There were a lot of wounded horses we had to shoot to
end their misery.

We had several charges with their infantry, too. We find they
don't like the bayonets. Their