Dick commenced.
"One afternoon a few months back, our gun's crew was sitting on the firestep, just in front of Gommecourt Wood.
"Happy was busily engaged in rigging up a flash screen to hide the flare of our gun, which we were to mount on the parapet that night.
"Sailor Bill—he hadn't at that time joined the Suicide Club—was sewing a piece of khaki cloth over his tin hat, because the night previous while on sentry go, standing in the moonlight, with his head over the top, the rays from the moon had reflected from his steel helmet, and a couple of German bullets had knocked up the dirt within a few feet of his head.
"Hungry was wrestling with a tin of bully beef, while Curly was hunting for cooties, or answering letters, I forget which.
"Ikey, with our mascot, Private Jim, was sitting on the firestep, his back leaning against a traverse, picking mud out of his harmonica with a sliver of wood. Private Jim was happy and contented, not knowing the fate in store for him. Two days later he was killed by a German bullet and we buried him behind the lines like any other bloke would be buried, wooden cross and all.
"After working a few minutes at the harmonica, Ikey paused, put it to his lips, and blew into it; a squeaky, rattly noise resulted,—you know the usual kind. Then, with a deep sigh, he resumed the picking process.
"I had just finished a letter home, and was sighing for the time to come when I would take the Kaiser, a prisoner, back to good old Dublin.