“... My guns are better than the German guns ... for instance, my 15-inch shell is equivalent to their 17-inch. The issue is now one between Krupp’s and Birmingham.”
(Field-Marshal Sir John French to Mr. James O’Grady, M.P., quoted in the Daily News, August 23, 1915.)
“Too-too! Too-too! Too-too!”
“‘Ul-loh?” (wearily).
“Too-too! Too-too! Too-too!” (with insistence).
“‘Ul-loh?” (with vexation). “‘Ul-loh? ‘Ul-loh?”
The sounds issued forth from a low, cramped dug-out, where a perspiring orderly, squatting on a box, huddled over a crepitating telephone-receiver—not the “gentlemanly article” of your City office or my lady’s boudoir, but a Brobdingnagian kind of instrument. Fragments of conversation drifted out of the hole:
“’Oo? ... I can’t ’ear yer.... Oh! Yessir! Yessir! Yessir!”
Then a sentence was bawled and repeated from mouth to mouth till it reached the orderly standing at the end of the trench. “The Major of the Blankshires sends ’is compliments to Captain X, and there’s a German working-party be’ind the village clearly visible. Will Captain X send a few rounds over?”
The Captain turned wearily to the subaltern by his side (Cambridge O.T.C., out since March, keen as mustard). “Did you ever see such fellows?” he said. Then, to the orderly: “My compliments to the Major, and we have been watching that working-party for the past half-hour. Unfortunately, it is out of range. But tell him, you can, that we have just dispersed another working-party over by the bridge!”