We would shout "Gott strafe der Kaiser!" That would put them up in the air higher than a balloon. We would feel like getting out and hitting one another, but we dare not even raise a finger because a sniper would take it off. But after a lull there is always a storm, so before many minutes a bullet would go "crack," which would be the signal for thousands of rifles on both sides to commence an incessant firing. All this over nothing, and nobody getting hurt.
It put me in mind of a couple of old women scrapping over a back-yard fence, and as we say back home, "all fussed up and no place to go."
CHAPTER X
HELLO! SKY-PILOT!
At the outset of the war there was much speculation as to the response the Lion's cubs would make to the call for help. Britain, herself, never doubted that her children, now fully grown and very strong, would rally to the old flag as in the earlier days of their greater dependency. But Britain, England, is of the Brer Rabbit type—she sits still and says nuffin'.
The neutrals speculated on the attitude of Canada. German propaganda had been busy, and certain sections of the Canadian public had been heard to say that they had no part with England—but that was before the war. The speculative neutral had a shock and a disappointment. Not a Canadian, man or woman, but remembered that England was "home," and home was threatened. As one man they answered the short sharp cry.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa provided food for conversation among the nations then not engaged in the fight. South Africa had a rising, fostered by German money and German lies, but it fizzled out before the determined attitude, not of England, but of the men who counted in South Africa itself. All of these countries, which used to be colonies, came without question when the need arose. They may have had minor disagreements with the Old Country, they may have resented the last lingering parental attitude of the Motherland, but let any one touch as an enemy that Motherland and that enemy had well have cried, "Peccavi!" on the moment.
Above all, the neutrals wondered about India. That vast Far Eastern Empire with her millions of men—what would India do?