I don't want you to go and make no mistake. You've stirred us up a bit with all your talk, but we've got no grudge against your soldiers. We don't hate 'em. They're good fighting men, though I'm not saying that we ain't better, and good fighting men don't hate one another. We got one of your blokes the other day. He came on with the attack, and when we'd beaten it off, there he was still coming on. He'd dropped his rifle and his helmet was off, and he was groping about with his hands, and he wasn't shouting "Hock! Hock!" but he didn't stop. We didn't loose off at him, there was something so funny about him, and in another minute he tumbled in right atop of us and we took him. He told us afterwards he'd lost his spectacles and couldn't see a yard in front of him, and that was the reason for his being so brave. He talked English, too, but in a funny way, slow and particular and like as if he'd got a bit of suet pudding in his mouth. Well, we soon made him snug and tidy and then we started to pull his leg and fill him up, and he swallowed it all down. We told him something had gone wrong with the beefsteak pie and the jam tartlets and the orange jelly, and he'd have to satisfy himself with his own rations; but to-morrow there'd be a prime cut of mutton and an apple-tart; and he believed all our fairy tales and said he'd write the story of the English army's food if ever he got home alive. He was a learned man too, but his lost spectacles gave him a lot of trouble. The end of it was we made quite a pet of him, and we were quite sorry when we got relieved and took him to the rear and handed him over as a prisoner. There wasn't any hatred about it.
Yours,
Cock-Eyed Dick.
REPATRIATION.
An interesting alien, he charmed our hours of ease,
Being either Blue Hungarian or Purple Viennese,
And he cut a gorgeous figure in his blue (or purple) suit
As he coaxed enticing noises from (I think it was) the flute.
If his name upon the programme ever chanced to be defined,