“The testimony reads that he was intoxicated.”
“It is further stated that you helped the accused to his quarters.”
“No, Sir; I went over to the quarters with the Captain.”
“It is said that you helped the accused into his bunk.”
“Did the accused say anything that would lead you to suspect that he was intoxicated?”
“When I was leaving, Sir, he said: ‘McSweeny, call me early. I am going to be Queen of the May.’”
Terry O’Neill was steward on an army transport. Before the mess call sounded Terry always visited the different staterooms. Pushing the door ajar, he would say to the officers: “Gentlemen, do you wish me to throw your luncheon overboard, or will you do it yourselves?”
“And did you have a good crossing?” asked the friend of the adventurous lady who had just returned from France.
“Oh, a most terrible crossing, terrible. The most awful storm I’ve ever been in. Yet I wasn’t a bit afraid. The other passengers were in a panic running all over the boat, till at last the captain, who had heard that I was a singer, asked me to sing to them and quiet them, and I did. And all the time I was singing the heavy seas were running.”
“I don’t blame ’em!” growled her father. “I don’t blame those heavy seas a bit.”
A Frenchwoman was torn by a shell while rendering service to the soldiers, and General Petain, of the French Armies, accompanied by his staff and by General Pershing as a guest, went to the woman’s bedside and pinned on her breast the Croix de Guerre, the soldiers’ cross of war.
“My general,” said the woman to Petain, “I am glad to have been struck so that you may see and know that the daughters as well as the sons of France are ready to suffer and, if need be, to die for France and for her liberty.”
A recruiting sergeant stationed in the south of Ireland met Pat and asked him to join the army. The latter refused, whereupon the sergeant asked his reason for refusing.
“Aren’t the King and the Kaiser cousins?” asked Pat.
“Well,” said Pat, “begorra, I once interfered in a family squabble, and I’m not going to do so again.”
Some time ago, when a British corps was reviewed by Sir Ian Hamilton, one officer was mounted on a horse that had previously distinguished itself in a bakery business. Somebody recognized the horse, and shouted, “Baker!” The horse promptly stopped dead, and nothing could urge it on.