CHAPTER XIX
Wounded
"If you're lucky you'll get killed quick; if you're damned lucky you'll get 'it where it don't 'urt, and sent back to Blighty."—Bill Teake's Philosophy.
"Some min have all the damned luck that's agoin'," said Corporal Flaherty. "There's Murney, and he's been at home two times since he came out here. Three months ago he was allowed to go home and see his wife and to welcome a new Murney into the wurl'. Then in the Loos do the other day he got a bit of shrapnel in his heel and now he's home again. I don't seem to be able to get home at all. I wish I had got Murney's shrapnel in my heel.... I'm sick of the trenches; I wish the war was over."
"What were you talking to the Captain about yesterday?" asked Rifleman Barty, and he winked knowingly.
"What the devil is it to you?" inquired Flaherty.
"It's nothin' at all to me," said Barty. "I would just like to know."
"Well, you'll not know," said the Corporal.
"Then maybe I'll be allowed to make a guess," said Barty. "You'll not mind me guessin', will yer?"
"Hold your ugly jaw!" said Flaherty, endeavouring to smile, but I could see an uneasy look in the man's eyes. "Ye're always blatherin'."