The Elk Mountain pilot., 1916-11-02
CAVALRY CHARGE
VERY THRILLING.
Officer of Deccan Horse Tells
How Mounted Men Got
Into Action.
DID NOT WANT PRISONERS
But Eight Germans Who Threw Away
Their Rifles and Called "Pity"
Were Taken Alive-Un-
der Fierce Fire.

London.-During the first two years
u the war cavalry played no part In
the great battles fought on the west
ern front. The men of this arm of the
service We're used in the trenches 10 re-
enforce the infantry. Recently, how
ever, the cavalry got its chance and
how well the mounted arm responded
is indicated in letter written by an
officer of the famous Deccan Horse OF
the British army to his wife in Ire
land. The letter reads:
AT 6 80 we started our famous ride
into the enemy country, every now and
then coming under heavy shell fire
shrapnel and high explosive. No one
can believe, without seeing, what
state the ground is in; there is not
room for II table cloth on any part of
the ground there, without some part of
it touching a shell hole, so you can
imagine the regiment galloping over
it at full gallop, barbed-wire-wel cut
by shell tire-old trenches, dead bodies,
and every sort of debris lying in every
direction. Words fail me to describe it,
Bring Down Balloon.
''That was for about three miles; ;
then full tilt down a steep bank like
the Haggard field, but sleeper, into a
very famous valley, where the shrap-
mel got worse, as we were spotted by
one of their sausage balloons. This was
soon driven down by the fire of our
batteries, which just smothered it with
shrapnel. On we went, past the re-
mains of guns and everything-tons of
ammunition and abandoned material
and dead Germans everywhere; and
we passed here an enormous gun they
had left behind. so really | suppose 1t
was us that took It. We We're under
cover here for half a mile, but sudden
ly. coming out of the valley, we had to
turn sharp to the right up another lit
tie valley, and here we came under
terrific, but rather inaccurate, machine
gun fire from two directions.
at was now about Z 80 in the eve
| ming. and there were "a aeroplaneS
lowering over us. and one monoplane
came down to about 200 feet and fired
his machine guns on the Germans just
over us-going round and round-the
finest sight l have ever seen. Well,
we moved out under n heavy fire and
got on about half n mile. During this
advance we rounded up eight prison
ers, while between us and the British
| regiment, / suppose. we stuck with
sword and lance about forty of them,
glorious sight.
"Our men were splendid and didn't
want to take any prisoners, but these
eight had chucked away their arms.
so we couldn't very well do them in.
They were simply terrified, and one
| clung on to my leg and kept calling,
PITY. Pityr his eyes starting out Of
his head. Poor devil, l pitied him,
and we sent him back to the regiment.
We dismounted in little hollow then
and went on on foot through good
| crop of wheat full of shell holes and
| dead Germans. OF course. we were
creeping all the way, as the fire was
very hot At last, after going n quar-
ter of mile, we got to the fiat top Of
the hill, driving them before us. Here
we had to stop, as the ground was be-
ing swept by rifle and machine gun
fire, and they were now shelling us
heavily. We got our Hotchkiss guns
into action and set to work.
| Not Healthy Spot.
"By crawling slowly forward we got
field of fire. and could see the Ger
mans plainly and a battery about half
| a mile ahead. We plugged few here,
| and then it happened to get dark, and
we had to retire about 800 yards to n
better position and dig in for the night.
This we did all right, the Germans
making n feeble charge as we did it.
| | was along at the time with mes
sage, so l let fly six rounds at them
| with my revolver, and they all lay
down. However, it was not healthy
SPOT and l had to crawl back, and re-
Joined the squadron. We got our
| horses, and came back and rejoined
| the regiment. One shell landed in the
middle of us as we mounted. These
tin hats are good. especially for shrap-
mel.
"Well, we got back and dug in like
blazes. They made two weak attacks
during the night, and shelled us all the
time. We hung on there until four
o'clock, put up wire in front of us, and
our battery helped us well. Infantry
relieved us then they had just got up.
you see our job was to push on
MS far ns we could. and hold the line
to give the feet time to get up. So
we did our job all right. We then
rode back-'but not the 600"