Colonel—“Do you not know you ought to salute me, or any other officer when he passes you?”
Recruit—“Aye; but then thee and me fell out yesterday.”
A BIT OF RUSSIAN WIT
Aide-de-Camp to Grand Duke Nicholas—“We have just captured a motor-car containing a German of very high rank. We think it is the Kaiser.”
Grand Duke—“For heaven’s sake release him at once. He is our best asset in the field. He always gives the wrong instructions and interferes at the wrong moment.”
ARMORED CANADIAN SOLDIERS
Like knights of old, the Canadian troops for the front are equipped with armor. It is in the form of a spade, to be carried on the back when not in use, to be used for digging trenches when not wanted for protective purposes, and to act as a shield and rifle-rest when the fighting begins.
There is an oval hole in the middle of the blade of the spade. Through this hole the soldier pokes his rifle, just as the archers in the old days used narrow niches in the walls of a castle.
Although the spade weighs only four pounds, and can be carried on marches with ease, it is practically bullet-proof. For hours at Valcartier Camp Sergeant Hawkins, the King’s prize-winner, potted at the spades with his rifle, but it was not until he shot at 200 yards with Mark 7 ammunition that the spades were damaged at all. Then they were only cracked.