An Irish Rifle
There was a young chap of the Irish Rifles. He was kneeling beside a wounded man of the Gloucester, keeping off the Germans, who were circling round like carrion birds. He had been hit himself, but was gamely firing at the enemy as fast as his wounded arm would permit. We went to his assistance, but they were both worn-out when we reached them, and, greatly to our regret, we had to leave them to be picked up by the Red Cross people. That was hard; but if you tried to pick up every wounded man you saw you wouldn’t be much use as a fighter, and as we were under urgent orders to take up a position from which to cover the retreat, we had no time for sentiment. They knew that, and they weren’t the men to ask us to risk the safety of the army for them. “Never mind,” the rifleman said, with a faint smile on a ghastly face, “the sisters will pick us up when it’s all over, but if they don’t, sure, then we’ve only got once to die, and it’s the grand fight we had, anyhow. What more could soldiers ask for?” When we came back again one of the men was there sure enough—stone dead; but his mate had gone, and whether it was the Germans or the Red Cross people that got him I wouldn’t care to say: A Trooper of the Irish Dragoons.
The Worst Part
I think the worst part of it all to bear is seeing the refugees; it breaks you up to see people too old to walk being pushed about in wheelbarrows and hand-carts. Let the Germans look out if the French and the Belgians get into Germany, for there will be the devil to pay, I bet. It would be hard to blame them, whatever they do, after what I have seen done to villages here.... The pepper is good stuff; I put some in my tea—it warms you up a treat: Bombardier Yorke, R.H.A.
[XV. ANECDOTES OF HUMOUR]
Said the king to the colonel,
“The complaints are eternal,
That you Irish give more trouble