German soldiers are known as "Sausages" and the Uhlan Lancers as the "Ewe lambs." The Kaiser himself is no more to our men than "Willie the Weed," or "Crazy Bill."
In letters from the front there used to be puzzling references to "Asquiths." Now we know this is the name for French matches, because you have to "Wait and see" what happens when you strike one. German snipers are known as "Little Willies" and some of the shells as "Whistling Willies."
The outer line of trenches, where the men are posted at first to draw the German fire, is known as the "drawing-room," and the inner line, where the attacks are really met, is called the "reception-room." The ground at the rear where the dead are buried is the "dormitory."
When a "Taube" aeroplane approaches British lines the men call out "Here comes a stormy petrol."
Between 9 and 10 p.m. German sharpshooters generally came out to fire on any man who exposed himself. This was called "The good-night kiss."
The emergency ration becomes "The imaginary ration." A British soldier was given by a Frenchman a tame rabbit. He kept it in one of the trenches; but called it an emergency ration, because, though fond of his pet, he might one day have to kill and eat it.
Very appropriate is the football metaphor, which describes spies as "playing off side" and prisoners as "ordered off the field."
Metaphor comes also from picture houses, and when a man says that he "has been given a stall for the pictures" it is understood that he has to do duty during the night in a rifle-pit close under the enemy's line.
Barbed wire entanglements are "fly traps" and "spiders' webs."