Then was the
time our men proved their worth. They absolutely shattered the Germans
with their shells."
Some gallant stories are told of the Royal Engineers. One especially
thrilling, is given in the words of Darino, a lyrical artist of the
Comedie Francaise, who joined the Cuirassiers, and was a spectator of
the scene he describes. A bridge had to be blown up, and the whole place
was an inferno of mitrailleuse and rifle fire. "Into this," he relates,
"went your Engineers. A party of them rushed towards the bridge, and,
though dropping one by one, were able to lay the charge before all were
sacrificed. For a moment we waited. Then others came. Down towards the
bridge they crept, seeking what cover they could in their eagerness to
get near enough to light the fuse. Ah! it was then we Frenchmen
witnessed something we shall never forget. One man dashed forward to his
task in the open, only to fall dead. Another, and another, and another
followed him, only to fall like his comrade, and not till the twelfth
man had reached the fuse did the attempt succeed. As the bridge blew up
with a mighty roar, we looked and saw that the brave twelfth man had
also sacrificed his life."
During the long retreat from Mons the Middlesex Regiment got into an
awkward plight, and a bridge--the only one left to the Germans--had to
be destroyed to protect them.
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