The effect of searchlights is thus described: "In the dark the Germans turned on searchlights. We could see them hunting about for someone to pot at. Uncanny that was. To see the blooming big lane of light working round and round. It was like a monstrous eye, looking for its prey. Then we heard the shells whistle. And when the pale, weird light came round to us and lit us up so that we could see each other's faces, Lord, it made my blood run cold—just as I used to feel when I was a nipper and woke up and saw a light and thought it was a ghost, and lay there wondering what would happen next."
[CHAPTER XXV]
Unconscious Humorists
It cannot be claimed, perhaps, for any one class of society that they are more humorous than are others, but as soldiers live, day and night, in a crowd, they sharpen each other's wits, and their training has, or ought to have, the effect of making them good observers.
As the British soldier is brave without knowing it, so is he an unconscious humorist. He does not set up to be that sad thing—a "funny man."
Our soldiers began the campaign against Germany facetiously by printing in chalk on the troop trains at Boulogne "No-stop run to Berlin."
When our soldiers come home, you will hear some wonderful French. A man from Limerick asked a war correspondent to translate an English sentence into French. "I did it to the best of my ability". He looked at me very solemnly; then said: 'Do it agin, sorr.' I did it again, and he stopped me. 'Whisht, hold yer jaw, or be me soul the guarrd'll arrest ye for a German spy; yer Frinch is homemade an' brought up on th' bottle.'
A bombardier of the Royal Field Artillery wrote: