"An' a good feed o' fish an' chips fer me, Sammy. Mind yer foot! There's a 'ole just 'ere!"
"'Ere comes old Sid! W'ere you caught it, mate?"
"In me bloomin' shoulder. It ain't 'arf givin' it to me!"
"Never you mind, Sid! Blightey fer you, boy!"
"Hi, Sid! Tell me old lady I'm still up an' comin', will you? You know w'ere she lives, forty-six Bromley Road."
One lad, his nerve gone, pushed his way frantically down the trench. He had "funked it." He was hysterical with fright and crying in a dry, shaking voice,—
"It's too 'orrible! I can't stand it! Blow you to 'ell they do! Look at me! I'm slathered in blood! I can't stand it! They ain't no man can stand it!"
He met with scant courtesy. A trench during an attack is no place for the faint-hearted. An unsympathetic Tommy kicked him savagely.
"Go 'ide yerself, you bloody little coward!"
"More lemons! More cricket balls!" and at last, Victory! Fritzie had "chucked it," and men of the Royal Engineers, that wonderfully efficient corps, were on the spot with picks and shovels and sandbags, clearing out the wreckage, and building a new barricade at the farther end of the communication trench.