Part 13 (2/2)

”Yuss. They're too long. The blighters 'ave no grip on them. We just parry and then thrust with the point; we've giv' up cutting exercises.

If the thrust misses, you uses the pommel--so!” He executed an intimidating gesture with his stick.

”Well, ah've had ma bit o' fun,” interjected a small H.L.I. man irrelevantly, feeling, apparently, it was his turn in the symposium, as he thrust a red head with a freckled skin and high cheek-bones into the group. ”Ah ken verra weel ah got 'im. It was at a railway stashon where we surprised 'em. Ah came upon a Jerrman awficer--I thocht he were drunk--and he fired three times aht me with a ree-vol-ver. But ah got 'im. Yes, ah've had ma bit o' fun,” he said complacently as he cherished an arm in a sling.

With him was a comrade belonging to the ”Lilywhites,” the old 82nd, now known as the first battalion of the South Lancs, with whom the H.L.I.

have an ancient friends.h.i.+p. The South Lancs have also their antipathies--the King's Liverpools among them--but that is neither here nor there.

”It were just like a coop-tie crowd was the retreat,” he drawled in the broad Lancas.h.i.+re dialect. ”A fair mix-up, it were.”

”What do you think of the Germans?”

There was a chorus of voices. ”Not much”--”Blighters”--”Swine.”

”Their 'coal-boxes' don't come off half the time,” said the R.F.A. man professionally. ”And their shrapnel hasn't got the dispersion ours has.

Ours is a treat--like sugar-loaf.” The German gunnery has become deadly enough since then.

”Their coal-boxes do stink though,” said a Hoxton man in the Royal Fusiliers. ”Reminds me of our howitzer sh.e.l.ls in the Boer War; they used to let off a lot of stuff that turned yellow. I've seen Boers--hairy men, you know, sir--with their beards turned all yellow by them. Regular hair-restorers, they was.”

”I remember up on the Aisne,” continued the Hoxton man, who had an ingenuous countenance, ”one of our chaps shouted 'Waiter,' and about fifty on 'em stuck their heads up above the trenches and said, 'Coming, sir.'”

There was a shout of laughter. The chaplain looked incredulous. ”Don't mind him, he's pulling your leg, sir,” said his neighbour. It is a pastime of which the British soldier is inordinately fond.

”They can't shoot for nuts, that's a fact,” said a Rifleman. ”They couldn't hit a house if they was in it. We can give them five rounds rapid while they're getting ready to fire one. Fire from the hips, they do. I never seen the likes of it.” It was the professional criticism of the most perfectly trained body of marksmen in the world, and we listened with respect. ”But they've got some tidy snipers,” he added candidly.

”They was singing like an Eisteddfod,” said a man in the South Wales Borderers, ”when they advanced. Yess, they was singing splendid. Like a _cymanfa ganu_,[18] it wa.s.s. Fair play.”

”And what do you boys do?” asked the chaplain. ”Do you sing too?”

”Faith, I swore,” said one of the Munsters, ”I used every name but a saint's name.” The speaker was a Catholic, and the chaplain was Church of England, or he might have been less candid.

”There was a mon in oor company,” said the red-headed one, feeling it was his turn again, ”that killed seven Jerrmans--he shot six and baynitted anither. And he wur fair fou[19] afterwards. He grat like a bairn.”

”Aye, mon,” said a ruddy man of the Yorks L.I., ”ah knaw'd ah felt mysen dafflin[20] when ah saw me pal knocked over. He comed fra oor toon, and he tellt me hissen the neet afore: 'Jock,' 'e said, 'tha'll write to me wife, woan't tha?' And ah said, 'Doan't be a fule, Ben, tha'll be all right.' 'Noa, Jock,' he tellt me, 'ah knaw'd afore ah left heeam ah should be killt. Ah saw a mouldiwarp[21] dead afore oor door; me wife fair dithered[22] when she saw't.'”

The chaplain and myself looked puzzled. ”It's a kind o' sign among the fouk in our parts, sir,” he proceeded, enlightening our ignorance. ”And 'e asked me to take his bra.s.s for the wife. But ah thowt nowt of it. And we lost oor connectin' files and were n.o.bbut two platoons, and we got it somethin' cruel; the sh.e.l.ls were a-skirling[23] like peewits ower our heids. And Ben were knocked over and 'e never said a ward. And then ah got fair daft.”

There was silence for a moment.

”I found this,” suddenly interrupted a despatch-rider. He was a fair-spoken youth, obviously of some education. He explained, in reply to our interrogatories, that he was a despatch-rider attached to a Signal Company of the R.E. He produced a cap, apparently from nowhere, by mere sleight of hand. It was greasy, weather-stained, and in no respect different from a thousand such Army caps. It bore the badge and superscription of the R.E. We looked at it indifferently as he held it out with an eleemosynary gesture.

”A collection will now be taken,” said the Hoxton man with a grin.

But the despatch-rider did not laugh. ”I found this cap,” he said gravely, ”on Monday, September 7th, in a house near La Ferte. We stopped there for four hours while the artillery were in action. We saw a broken motor bicycle outside a house to which the people pointed. We went in.

We found one of our despatch-riders with an officer's sword sticking in him. Our section officer asked the people about it, and they told him that the despatch-rider arrived late one night, having lost his way and knocked at the door of the house. There were German officers billeted there. They let him in, and then they stuck him up against a wall and cut him up. He had fifteen sabre-cuts,” he added quietly.

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