On his way he met the officer who had watched them leave the trench and was greeted with a laugh. “Hullo, old cock. Some mud! You look as if you’d been crawling a bit. See any Boche?”
“Crawling!” said the Lieutenant. “Any Boche! I’ve been doing nothing but crawl for a hundred years—except when I was squirming on my face. And I’ve been falling over Boche, treading on Boche, bumping into Boche, listening to Boche remarks—oh, ever since I can remember,” and he laughed, just a trifle hysterically.
“Did you get over their line then? If so, you’re just back in time. Mist has clean gone in the last few minutes.” A sudden thought struck the Lieutenant. He peered long and carefully over the parapet. The last wisps of mist were shredding away and the jumble of torn ground and trenches and wire in the German lines was plainly visible. “Look,” said the Lieutenant. “Three or four hundred yards behind their line—hanging on some wire. That’s my coat....”
VI
SEEING RED
The Mess, having finished reading the letters just brought in, were looking through the home papers. Harvey, who used to be a bank clerk, giggled over a page in Punch and passed it round. “Pretty true, too, isn’t it?” he said. The page was one of those silly jolly little drawings by Bateman of men with curly legs, and the pictures showed typical scenes from the old life of an average City clerk, trotting to business, playing dominoes, and so on, and the last one of a fellow tearing over the trenches in a charge with a real teeth-gritted, blood-in-his-eye look, and the title of the lot was “It’s the Same Man.”
Everyone grinned at it and said “Pretty true,” or something like that. “It reminds me ...” said the Australian.
Now this is the Australian’s story, which he said he had got from one of the fellows in the show. For the truth or untruth I give no guarantee, but just tell the tale for what it’s worth.