The sergeant-major gave a snort of laughter.
“The Russians?... They soon tired of it, anyhow. Let us all down, eh?”
“What about atrocities?’’ said the corporal, who was a cockney.
“Atrocities?” said the English-speaking girl. “Oh, yes, there were many. The Russians were very cruel.”
“Come oft it,” said the corporal. “I mean German atrocities.”
“German?” said the girl. “No, our soldiers were well behaved—always! There were many lies told in the English papers.” *
“That’s true enough,” said the sergeant-major. “Lies? Why, they fed us up with lies. ‘The Germans are starving. The Germans are on their last legs.’ ‘The great victory at Neuve Chapelle.’ God! I was in that great victory. The whole battalion cut to pieces and not an officer left. A bloody shambles—and no sense in it.... Another drop of wine, my dear?”
“Seems to me,” said the cockney corporal, “that there was a deal of dirty work on both sides. I’m not going to say there wasn’t no German atrocities—lies or no lies—becos saw a few of ‘em myself, an’ no mistake. But what I says now is what I says when I lay in the lousy trenches with five-point-nines busting down the parapets. The old devil ‘as got us all by the legs!’ I said, and ‘ad a fellow-feelin’ for the poor blighters on the other side of the barbed wire lying in the same old mud. Now I’m beginning to think the Germans are the same as us, no better nor no worse, I reckon. Any ‘ow, you can tell your sister, miss, that I like the way she does ‘er ‘air. It reminds me of my Liz.”
The English-speaking German girl did not understand this speech. She appealed to the sergeant-major.
“What does your friend say?”