"But the whizz-bangs—nobody loves a whizz-bang. You can't even hear them coming. You never have time to place a bet. They just whizz and bang in the same breath; and if you happen to be conscious after that, you help to bandage."
Capt. Corcoran enlisted as a private. I wondered how he came to get his commission.
"So did I," he said. "I was carrying despatches to different places within our sector; couldn't go to another sector without special orders. But one day I was asked to take a despatch to another sector and I took it. When I came back, they made me a lieutenant. Nothing at all had happened, and I couldn't understand it. I didn't have any pull that I knew of; and besides, pulls don't count nowadays.
"They told me a while later," he added, "that I was the seventh man sent out with that despatch. The first six were killed."
II—"I WAS IN A CAVE ON CHRISTMAS EVE"
It was nearing Christmas when I met Capt. Corcoran. He is a genial and, I felt sure, a rather sentimental soul; but his matter-of-fact conversation about matter-of-fact human slaughter was altogether chilling. So I asked him about Christmas in the trenches.
"I spent last Christmas at Loos," he said. Loos, one of the worst of slaughter pens! I grew expectant.
"I was sapping," he said. "Part of an engineer's duties are the extension of deep underground passages toward the enemy's lines, laying mines under 'No Man's Land' and listening, if possible, for signs of activity on the other side.
"I was sapping—Christmas Eve. We were down thirty-five feet, in a little cave about nine by four. There were three of us. Along toward midnight a big shell landed right, and we were buried. We were buried thirteen hours. One of the boys lost his mind, but they dug us out Christmas afternoon."