And then, just as we were getting away, they spotted us, and a battery
opened on us good and strong. By a mixture of good luck and great
effort we'd got all the guns away but one, when a shell landed just
in front of the leaders and knocked them both out with their driver;
at the same time the gun was jerked off the road into a muddy ditch.
Almost simultaneously another shell killed one of the wheelers, and
there we were with one horse left to get the gun out of the ditch and
along a road that was almost as bad as the ditch itself.

"It looked hopeless, and it was on the tip of my tongue to give orders
to abandon the gun, when suddenly out of the blue there appeared on
the bank above us a horse, looking unconcernedly down at us.

"In those days loose horses were straying all over the country, and
I took this to be one from another battery which had come to us for
company.

"I turned to one of the men. 'Catch that mare quick.'

"In a few minutes we had the harness off the dead wheeler and on the
new-comer. Pull? Gentlemen, if you could have seen those two horses
pull!

"We'd just got a move on the gun when another shell came and seemed
to burst right on top of the strange mare. I heard a terrified squeal,
and through the smoke I saw her stagger and with a mighty effort
recover herself. I ran round and saw she'd been badly hit over the eye
and had a great tearing gash in the neck. We never thought she could
go on, but she pulled away just the same, with the blood pouring off
her, till finally we got the gun out and down the road to safety.