It was midnight now.
“We’ll go in the other direction,” said Captain P——, when he had learned that there was no news.
This brought us to an Irish regiment. The Irish naturally had something to say.
XVII
WITH THE IRISH
The Irish have something to say!—The Irish in America—The misguided Germans—The American’s visit an event—Veterans of Mons—Eggs in the trenches!—Irish hospitality—A dum-dum souvenir—A memorable drink—Sixty yards from the Germans—The Germans at work—British discipline, a comparison—A vision of the German dead—German diaries—Pawns of war—A heaven of soap and hot water—In the captain’s “house”—Soldier shop talk—Trench appetite—A village literally flailed—Pity the refugees.
Here, not the Irish Sea lay between the broad a and the brogue, but the space between two sentries or between two rifles with bayonets fixed, lying against the wall of the breastworks ready for their owners’ hands when called to arms in case of an alarm. One stepped from England into Ireland; and my prediction that the Irish would have something to say was correct. They had; for that matter, there are always individual Irishmen in the English regiments, lest English phlegm should let conversation run short.
The first man who made his presence felt was a good six feet in height, with a heavy moustache, and the ear-pieces of his cap tied under his chin though the night was not cold. He placed himself fairly in front of me in the narrow path back of the breastworks and he looked a cowled and sinister figure in the faint glow from a brazier. I certainly did not want any physical argument with a man of his build.
“Who are you?” he demanded, as stiffly as if I had broken in at the veranda window with a jimmy.