"Gracious! And you never got a scratch?"
"Never a pin prick," said Bill, "And I saw the shells so thick comin' over us that you couldn't see the sky. They was like crows up above."
"They were?"
"We were in the trenches then," Bill said. "The orficer comes up and sez: 'Things are getting despirate! We've got to charge. 'Ool foller me?' 'I'm with you!' I sez, and up I jumps on the parapet pulling a machine gun with me."
"A machine gun!" said the red-haired man.
"A machine gun," Bill went on. "When one is risen 'e can do anything. I could 'ave lifted a 'ole battery on my shoulders because I was mad. I 'ad a look to my front to get the position then I goes forward. 'Come back, cried the orficer as 'e fell——"
"Fell!"
"'E got a bullet through his bread basket and 'e flopped. But there was no 'oldin' o' me. 'Twas death or glory, neck 'an nothin', 'ell for leather at that moment. The London Irish blood was up; one of the Chelsea Cherubs was out for red blood 'olesale and retail. I slung the machine gun on my shoulder, sharpened my bayonet with a piece of sand-paper, took the first line o' barbed wire entanglements at a jump and got caught on the second. It gored me like a bull. I got six days C.B. for 'avin' the rear of my trousers torn when we came out o' the trenches."
"Tell me something I can believe," said the red-haired youth.
"Am I not tellin' you something," asked Bill. "Nark it, matey, nark it. I tell Gospel-stories and you'll not believe me."