Perhaps if the joke singles out overmuch you go “all the colours of the rainbow,” a lovable thing, because it reveals your modesty. Otherwise you always are in your element, be the field tented white or stricken red. You are the complete knight in khaki, self-respecting, proud of your regiment, a lion-rampant of bravery and resolution, tender-hearted for all suffering; and we shall not forget your simple request, “Think kind of a soldier!” How could we when we know that you have a greater song than “Tipperary,” although you only sing it silently to yourselves in the dark watches of the night:
“_A little I’m hurt, but not yet slain; I’ll but lie down and bleed awhile And then I’ll rise and fight again._”
_Fair stood the wind for France When we our sails advance._
_Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife, To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name._
One pretty French girl had learned only one English phrase, “Kiss me quick.” I don’t know who taught her, but when she walked up the lines repeating it she soon found out its significance: _Truthful Thomas Atkins_.
The French girls are going mad on getting our cap-badges and the numerals on our shoulders. We have been served with jack-knives, and they want to buy them of us, but we will not part with them: _A Private of the Worcesters_.
France is a lovely country, but the sun has been very hot and trying--almost as bad as India. The roads are lined with apple and pear trees, which are now laden with fruit, and the troops are not in want of anything in that line: _Quartermaster-Sergeant R. Hodge_.
It’s enough to give you fits to hear the Frenchmen trying to pick up the words of “Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” which we sing with a great go on the march. They haven’t any notion of what the words mean, but they can tell from our manner that they mean we’re in great heart, and that’s infectious here: _Sergt. W. Holmes, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders_.
We never see a paper here; only a French one, and you should see the sport when our fellows try to read one. Everyone has his own way of reading it. The French people are very nice, also very generous. The only drawback is we can’t understand them--only just a few words now and again: _Sergt. D. O’Donnell, 2nd Royal Irish_.