At these times it seems as if nothing could wake them.
Shrapnel may thunder around them in vain; they never move a muscle. In
Mr. Stephen Crane's fine phrase, they "sleep the brave sleep of wearied
men."
III
HUMOR IN THE TRENCHES
One of the most surprising of the many revelations of this war has been
that of the gaiety, humor, and good nature of the British soldier. All
the correspondents, English and French, remark upon it. A new Tommy
Atkins has arisen, whose cheery laugh and joke and music-hall song have
enlivened not only the long, weary, exhausting marches, but even the
grim and unnerving hours in the trenches. Theirs was not the excitement
of men going into battle, nervous and uncertain of their behavior under
fire; it was rather that of light-hearted first-nighters waiting in the
queue to witness some new and popular drama.
"A party of the King's Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal
Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way!
Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given
by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of
Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them
with the bayonet. When first the fierce German searchlights were turned
on the British lines a little cockney in the Middlesex Regiment
exclaimed to his comrade: "Lord, Bill, it's just like a play, an' us in
the limelight"; and as the artillery fusillade passed over their heads,
and a great ironical cheer rose from the British trenches, he added:
"But it's the Kaiser wot's gettin' the bird.
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