During most of the war talk, it was my habit to keep discreetly quiet. We were not in the war yet, and any remarks from me usually drew some hot shot about Mr. Wilson's "blankety-blinked bloomin' notes."
There was another American, a chap named Sanford from Virginia, in B company, and he and I used to furnish a large amount of entertainment in these war talks. Sanford was a F.F.V. and didn't care who knew it. Also he thought General Lee was the greatest military genius ever known. One night he and I got started and had it hot and heavy as to the merits of the Civil War. This for some reason tickled the Tommies half to death, and after that they would egg us on to a discussion.
One of them would slyly say, "Darby, 'oo th' blinkin' 'ell was this blighter, General Grant?"
Or, "Hi sye, Sandy, Hi 'eard Darby syin' 'ow this General Lee was a bleedin' swab."
Then Sanford and I would pass the wink and go at it tooth and nail. It was ridiculous, arguing the toss on a long-gone-by small-time scrap like the Civil War with the greatest show in history going on all around us. Anyway the Tommies loved it and would fairly howl with delight when we got to going good.
It is strange, but with so many Americans in the British service, I ran up against very few. I remember one night when we were making a night march from one village to another, we stopped for the customary ten-minutes-in-the-hour rest. Over yonder in a field there was a camp of some kind,—probably field artillery. There was dim light of a fire and the low murmur of voices. And then a fellow began to sing in a nice tenor:
Bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild coyotes howl o'er me.
Bury me down in the little churchyard
In a grave just six by three.
The last time I had heard that song was in New Orleans, and it was sung by a wild Texan. So I yelled, "Hello there, Texas."
He answered, "Hello, Yank. Where from?"
I answered, "Boston."