A True Dream
It is a funny thing that Harry should dream about my arm being in a sling. You can tell him it is quite true. It was my right arm, and it is in a sling, but it will soon be out again for action. I enclose you a photo of dear old “Taff,” the goat which was the mascot of the regiment. He was shot the same day as I was, but I am very sorry to say that he is dead: Pte. Boswell, Welsh Regiment.
“Tough Nuts”
Have come across some very strange soldiers, with stranger weapons and equipment. Talk about the load of a Tommy, the pack of a Turco or Senegalese is double the size, and they are tough nuts, you take it from me. The cultured army of Kaiser Bill is material for mincemeat before very long, and all I can say is, “God help the troops with which the native regiments, both African and Indian, get to grips”: A Staff Sergeant-Major.
No Football!
It is all very well to read in the papers what a chap wrote to someone in Redhill about being fifty-six hours in the trenches and arranging football matches. We were thirteen days in the trenches at one place, where we only had to stand up a minute to bring a battery of German artillery on the top of us, and for hours we had to lie still or be blown to atoms. But never mind; the sun will shine again: Pte. Gibson, Royal Scots.
Hungry!
“Daddy’s Old Corps,” as we call the Lincolns, caught a lot of prisoners who seemed glad to get caught. One man was asked if he spoke English. He replied, “English none,” and on being asked if he wanted some biscuits, he said, “Ah, yes, I’m hungry,” so he was evidently a typical German—good at telling lies. He also knew how to demolish, for he got through six biscuits and a 12 oz. tin of bully in the twinkling of a gnat’s eyebrow, and then said, “More”: Corpl. Hawkins, of the Lincolns.
Animal Instinct
Even the animals in the French villages seemed to know the difference between us and the Germans, and they used to come out to meet us. There was a dog that followed our battery on the march for four days, and we hadn’t the heart to chase it away, and kept it with us. It was a soldier’s dog, you could see, and it died a soldier’s death, for it was smashed to pieces by a shell when curled upon the ground beside one of our guns in action. We crave it a soldier’s funeral with our own comrades next day: An Artilleryman, of Leicester.