Tommy Atkins at War: As Told in His Own Letters

by James Alexander Kilpatrick

III

HUMOR IN THE TRENCHES

One of the most surprising of the many revelations of this war has been that of the gaiety, humor, and good nature of the British soldier. All the correspondents, English and French, remark upon it. A new Tommy Atkins has arisen, whose cheery laugh and joke and music-hall song have enlivened not only the long, weary, exhausting marches, but even the grim and unnerving hours in the trenches. Theirs was not the excitement of men going into battle, nervous and uncertain of their behavior under fire; it was rather that of light-hearted first-nighters waiting in the queue to witness some new and popular drama.

"A party of the King's Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way! Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them with the bayonet. When first the fierce German searchlights were turned on the British lines a little cockney in the Middlesex Regiment exclaimed to his comrade: "Lord, Bill, it's just like a play, an' us in the limelight"; and as the artillery fusillade passed over their heads, and a great ironical cheer rose from the British trenches, he added: "But it's the Kaiser wot's gettin' the bird."

Many of the wounded who have been invalided home were asked whether this humor in the trenches is the real thing, or only an affected drollery to conceal the emotions the men feel in the face of death; but they all declare that it is quite spontaneous. One old soldier, well accustomed to being under fire, freely admitted that he had never been with such a cheery and courageous lot of youngsters in his life. "They take everything that comes to them as 'all in the game,'" he said, "and nothing could now damp their spirits."

Songs, cards and jokes fill up the waiting hours in the trenches; under fire, indeed, the wit seems to become sharpest. A corporal in the Motor Cycle Section of the Royal Engineers writes: "At first the German artillery was rotten. Three batteries bombarded an entrenched British battalion for two hours and only seven men were killed. The noise was simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily asked to "take the blooming thing in again," and in so doing he was wounded twice.

"The liveliest Sunday I ever spent" is how Private P. Case, Liverpool Regiment, describes the fighting at Mons. "It was a glorious time," writes Bandsman Wall, Connaught Rangers; "we had nothing to do but shoot the Germans as they came up, just like knocking dolls down at the fair ground." "A very pleasant morning in the trenches," remarks one of the Officers' Special Reserve; and another writer, after being in several engagements, says, "This is really the best summer holiday I've ever had."

Nothing could excel the coolness of the men under fire. With a hail of bullets and shells raining about them they sing and jest with each other unconcernedly. Wiping the dust of battle from his face and loading up for another shot, a Highlander will break forth into one of Harry Lauder's songs:

"It's a wee deoch an' doruis,
Jist a wee drap, that's a',"

and with a laugh some English Tommies will make a dash at the line "a braw, bricht, minlicht nicht," with ludicrous consequences to the pronunciation! According to "Joe," of the 2nd Royal Scots, the favorite songs in the trenches or round the camp-fire are "Never Mind," and "The Last Boat is leaving for Home." "Hitchy Koo" is another favorite, and was being sung in the midst of a German attack. "One man near me was wounded," says a comrade, "but he sang the chorus to the finish."