It happened late in 1917 in Tank Avenue, just on the left of Monchy-le-Preux. It was a foul night of rain, wind, sleet, and whizz-bangs.
My battalion had just been relieved, and we were making our way out as best we could down the miry communication trench. Every now and again we had to halt and press ourselves against the trench side to allow a straggling working party of the K.R.R.s to pass up into the line.
Shells were falling all over the place, and suddenly Fritz dropped one right into the trench a few bays away from where I was.
I hurried down and found two of the working party lying on the duckboards. They were both wounded, and one of them had his tunic ripped off him by the force of the explosion. What with his tattered uniform--and what remained of it--and his face and bare chest smothered in mud, he was a comical though pathetic sight. He still clung to his bundle of pickets he had been carrying and he sat up and looked round with a puzzled expression.
One of our sergeants--a rather officious fellow--pushed himself forward.
"'Course," retorted the half-naked Cockney. "Oo d'ye fink we was--Ancient Britons?"--_E. Gordon Petrie (late Cameron Highlanders), "Hunky-Dory," Demesne Road, Wallington, Surrey._
Between Ecoust and Bullecourt in January 1918 my platoon was passing a mine crater which was half-full of water when suddenly Jerry sent one over. Six of our fellows were wounded, and one of them, a Bow Road Cockney, was hurled into the crater.
He struggled to his feet and staggered towards a pile of rubble that rose above the muddy water like an island. Arrived there, he sat down and looked round him in bewilderment. Then: "Blimey," he muttered, "Robinson ruddy Crusoe!"--_E. McQuaid (late R.S.F.), 22 Grove Road, S.W.9._
On October 11-12, 1914, during the Mons retreat, a small party of 2nd Life Guards were told off as outpost on the main road, near Wyngene, Belgium. After we had tied our horses behind a farmhouse at the side of the road, we settled down to await the arrival of "Jerry."
Time went slowly, and one of our troopers suggested that we all put a half-franc into an empty "bully" tin, and the first one of us who shot a German was to take the lot. To this we all agreed.