[13] Cobber is Australian for a tried and trusted friend.
[14] Skiting—Australian for “swanking” in speech. “Skite”—blatherskite.
[15] Fray Bentos is a brand of tinned meat.
[16] Bonzer—Australian for “excellent.”
ICY
Nobody seemed to know much about him except that he was generally considered by all those who knew of him in the squadron to be a “cold-foot,” and his nickname was appropriately “Icy.” Not that the others had any particular cause to call him that, but whenever “Beachy Bill” came screeching overhead he would involuntarily duck and then smile in that peculiar manner of his as much as to say, “I can’t help it!” Beachy wasn’t his worst enemy, though, for if there was anything that he dreaded it was those Turkish “75’s.”[17] It used to make us feel as if we could shake him when we saw how he would double himself up. And yet one never liked to attempt anything of the kind whenever he used that smile. Moreover, as he was over six feet in height and correspondingly strong, it would not have been politic. His was a baffling smile, recalling the peculiar smile of the “Monna Lisa,” and, like it, unfathomable. He was a very quiet kind of chap, and when it was his turn to do fatigues, he would go and perform whatever was required of him without ever grumbling. His mates used to take a mean advantage of his good nature, and would shunt all the work, such as sweeping out the “possie,” or trenches, on to him.
About the time of which I am writing we had noticed that Abdul was sapping somewhere down the gully. Sometimes we could distinguish dark shapes moving about, and no amount of sniping on our part would stop them. They worked only during the night, and each morning we found that the pile of new earth down the gully had grown higher. At last we understood his plan—and it came to our turn to make a counter move.
One evening I was told off among others to go out and dig a new trench in front of Abdul’s new sap. We had to block him from getting to a certain place on the little ridge which hitherto had been in “No-Man’s Land.” I noticed that Icy had also been told off, but he was to be one of the covering party. All that night we worked hard, digging ourselves in and filling sandbags which we threw up in front of us. At first we were undisturbed, but suddenly the bullets began to ping-ping over our heads, and we knew that Abdul had tumbled. Still, as he was himself intent on digging he did not come out at us, but contented himself by sniping, thinking to drive us off in that way. However, it was a bit late in the day for that; since by the time he found us out we had already several good sandbags filled, and these protected us as long as we kept well down.
Several of our chaps were winged, but as none of the wounds was very serious we didn’t mind that. When it had struck five in the morning we knocked off and retired to sleep away the day. Half a dozen bomb-throwers who had volunteered for the job then took our places, bringing with them a few bombs, their rifles, ammunition, water bottles, and a supply of bully beef and biscuits. There they spent the whole day, lying low under cover of the sandbags. But Abdul troubled them not! Next night we went out again to resume work, and then it was that certain things happened which made us look upon Icy in a different light.
We had no sooner started work than ra-ta-ta-ta-ta went a machine-gun somewhere out to the left, and the bullets came pinging round hot and close, winging three and killing two on the first discharge.