Tommy Atkins at War | Page 7

hours and only seven men were killed. The noise was simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily asked to "take the blooming thing in again," and in so doing he was wounded twice.
"The liveliest Sunday I ever spent" is how Private P. Case, Liverpool Regiment, describes the fighting at Mons. "It was a glorious time," writes Bandsman Wall, Connaught Rangers; "we had nothing to do but shoot the Germans as they came up, just like knocking dolls down at the fair ground." "A very pleasant morning in the trenches," remarks one of the Officers' Special Reserve; and another writer, after being in several engagements, says, "This is really the best summer holiday I've ever had."
Nothing could excel the coolness of the men under fire. With a hail of bullets and shells raining about them they sing and jest with each other unconcernedly. Wiping the dust of battle from his face and loading up for another shot, a Highlander will break forth into one of Harry Lauder's songs:
"It's a wee deoch an' doruis, Jist a wee drap, that's a',"
and with a laugh some English Tommies will make a dash at the line "a braw, bricht, minlicht nicht," with ludicrous consequences to the pronunciation! According to "Joe," of the 2nd Royal Scots, the favorite songs in the trenches or round the camp-fire are "Never Mind," and "The Last Boat is leaving for Home." "Hitchy Koo" is another favorite, and was being sung in the midst of a German attack. "One man near me was wounded," says a comrade, "but he sang the chorus to the finish."
It is remarkable how these songs and witticisms steady the soldiers under fire. In a letter in the Evening News Sergeant J. Baker writes: "Some of our men have made wonderful practise with the rifle, and they are beginning to fancy themselves as marksmen. If they don't hit something every time they think they ought to see a doctor about it.... Artillery fire, however, is the deadliest thing out, and it takes a lot of nerve to stand it. The Germans keep up an infernal din from morning till far into the night; but they don't do half as much damage as you would think, though it is annoying to have all that row going on when you're trying to write home or make up the regimental accounts."
Writing home is certainly done under circumstances which are apt to have a disturbing effect upon the literary style. "Excuse this scrawl," writes one soldier, "the German shells have interrupted me six times already, and I had to dash out with my bayonet before I was able to finish it off." Another concludes: "Well, mother, I must close now. The bullets are a bit too thick for letter-writing." To a young engineer the experience was so strange that he describes it as "like writing in a dream."
Some of the nick-names given by Tommy Atkins to the German shells have already been quoted, but the most amusing is surely that in a letter from Private Watters. "One of our men," he relates, "has got a ripping cure for neuralgia, but he isn't going to take out a patent for it! While lying in the trenches, mad with pain in the face, a shell burst beside him. He wasn't hit, but the explosion rendered him unconscious for a time, and when he recovered, his neuralgia had gone. His name is Palmer, so now we call the German shells 'Palmer's Neuralgia Cure.'"
The amusing story of a long march afforded some mirth in the trenches when it got to be known. A party of artillerymen who had been toiling along in the dark for hours, and were like to drop with fatigue, ran straight into a troop of horsemen posted near a wood. "We thought they were Germans," one gunner related, "for we couldn't make out the colors of the uniforms or anything else, until we heard some one sing out 'Where the hell do you think you're going to?' _Then we knew we were with friends._"
Football is the great topic of discussion in the trenches. Mr. Harold Ashton, of the Daily News and Leader, relates an amusing encounter with a Royal Horse Artilleryman to whom he showed a copy of the paper. "Where's the sporting news?" asked the artilleryman as he glanced over the pages. "Shot away in