Having got through, the officers took command
again, formed them up, wheeled, and came back the way they went. It was
a sight for the gods."
Another episode was the capture of the German guns by the 2nd and 5th
Dragoons. An officer of the 5th gives an account of the exploit. "We
were attacked at dawn, in a fog," he relates, "and it looked bad for us,
but we turned it into a victory. Our brigade captured all the guns of
the German cavalry division, fourteen in all; the Bays lost two-thirds
of their horses and many men. The Gunner Battery of ours was annihilated
(twenty left), but the guns were saved, as we held the ground at the
end. This was only a series of actions, as we have been at it all day,
and every day. My own squadron killed sixteen horses and nine Uhlans in
a space of 50 ft., and many others, inhabitants told me, were lying in a
wood close by, where they had crawled. We killed their officer, a big
Postdam Guard, shot through the forehead. L Battery fought their guns to
the last, 'Bradbury' himself firing a gun with his leg off at the knee;
a shell took off his other leg. He asked me then to be carried from the
guns so that the men could not hear or see him."
One of the 2nd Dragoons, wounded in this engagement, says the Bays were
desperately eager for the order to charge, and exultant when the bugle
sounded.
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