The British soldier

by E. J. Hardy

Seven men of the Worcestershire Regiment were able to do a little business one day when they were told they could go for a stroll. They encountered a party of Germans, and captured them all without firing a shot. It was so simple. "We just covered them with our rifles and they surrendered."

Few of us take our easy work in time of peace in the playful spirit which was shown by our soldiers in the trying experiences of the trenches. This is what an officer wrote: "For three weeks we remained near the Aisne, east of Soissons, taking our turn in the trenches in shifts of four days and nights with two days' rest south of the river. We made the most wonderful trenches. The men called them the rabbit warren and themselves rabbits, and when the big guns gave ten seconds' warning they cried out, 'Here comes the gamekeeper,' and darted into their holes."

A soldier invalided home told of this mixture of play with work, or of work with play. "I got my wound in a fight that you will never hear of in official despatches, because it was a little affair of our own. It was what you might call a night attack. We had some leisure in our position along the Aisne, and there was a little village near our lines where we used to go for a bit of a lark. One night, coming back—there were about ten of us—we were surprised to find a light in an empty farmhouse, and were still more surprised to find sounds of revelry coming out through the window. We peeped in, and there were about fifty Germans drinking and eating and smoking, and generally trying to look as if they were having a jolly old time. A dare-devil of an Irishman suggested that we ought to give the Germans a little surprise, and we were all in with him. Doing our best to look fierce and create the impression that we had at least a brigade behind us, we flung open the door without any ceremony. Our first rush was for the passage, where most of the Germans had stacked their rifles, and from there we were able to cover the largest party in any one room. They were so taken aback that they made very little resistance. The only chap who showed any fight was a big fellow, who had good reason to fear us, for he had escaped the day before after being arrested as a spy. He whipped out a revolver, and some of his chums drew swords, but we fired into them, and they threw up their hands, after one had sent a revolver bullet through my arm. We fastened them up securely, collected all the smokes and grub they had not touched, and marched them off to the camp."

A soldier wrote: "One day last week we were on the move, and were about as hungry as men could be, when we came on a party of Uhlans just about to sit down to a dinner, which had been prepared for them at a big house. They looked as if they had had too much of a good time lately, and wanted thinning down, so we took them prisoners, and let them watch us enjoying their dinner. They didn't like it at all, and one of them muttered something about an English pig. The baby of the troop asked him outside to settle it with the fists, but he wasn't having it. After the best dinner I've had in my life we went round to where the Uhlans had commandeered the supplies, and offered to pay, but the people were so pleased that we had got the food instead of the Germans that they wouldn't hear of payment."

On another occasion Uhlans were driven out of their "supper room" by a small body of our cavalry. They left a finely-cooked repast of beefsteaks, onions and fried potatoes all ready and done to a turn, with about fifty bottles of Pilsener lager beer, which was an acceptable relish.

It was as good as a play when some of our soldiers were looking at and wishing for walnuts, and a German shell came and knocked them off the tree for them.

On another occasion when a German shell had set some wood on fire they cooked their food on the opportune flame.

A bombardier, R.F.A., wrote: "We were unable to sleep for the pouring rain, and sat at a big camp fire with hot tea and rum. The boys asked me to sing 'Annie Laurie,' and I was never in better voice. When I finished there were officers, and even the staff officers, who had come over the field in the rain to join in. They were nearly all Scotch, and 'Annie Laurie,' after all, is to a Scot what the 'Marseillaise' is to a Frenchman. One fellow was singing 'Boiled Beef and Carrots,' when a bullet came and knocked his cap off. An officer nearly died of laughing."

"The labour that delights us physics pain," as the corporal of the Garrison Artillery found, who wrote of his work: "There is something terribly fascinating about this sort of thing, and every day brings some new excitement and experience. I feel more the hardened old veteran each day, and don't care a straw where they send us. I may not tell you where we are, but I am proud to say we have seen as much sport as most of them. We are being looked after splendidly. Our officers are all kindness and consideration. The major is a typical warrior, and a thorough sport (as you well know). We don't care where he leads us, we are so fond of him."

When at one place the German searchlights were turned on the British lines and an artillery fusillade began, a man of the Middlesex Regiment shouted to his comrade, "I say, Bill, it's just like a play an' us in the limelight." The enemy had not got the range accurately, and so little was the effect of the fire that some of our men laughed loudly and held up their caps on the end of their rifles to give the German gunners "a bit of encouragement."