"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 the war," replied Mr. Ashton. "What!" exclaimed
Tommy, "not a line about the Arsenal? Well, I'm blowed! This _is_ a
war!" "We are all in good spirits," writes a bombardier in the 44th
Battery, Royal Artillery, "and mainly anxious to know how football is
going on in Newcastle now.
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