" "I got this," said a Gordon Highlander,
referring to his wound, "because I became excited in an argument with
wee Geordie Ferris, of our company, about the chances of Queen's Park
and Rangers this season."
An artilleryman sends a description of the fighting written in the
jargon of the football field. He describes the war as "the great match
for the European Cup, which is being played before a record gate, though
you can't perhaps see the crowd." In spite of all their swank, he adds,
"the Germans haven't scored a goal yet, and I wouldn't give a brass
farthing for their chances of lifting the Cup." At the battle of Mons it
was noticed that some soldiers even went into action with a football
attached to their knapsacks!
But there is no end to the humor of Tommy Atkins. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe
tells in the _Daily Mail_ how he stopped to sympathize with a wounded
soldier on the roadside near Mons. Asking if his injury was very painful
he received the remarkable reply: "Oh, it's not that. I lost my pipe in
the last blooming charge." In a letter from the front, published in the
_Glasgow Herald_, this passage occurs: "Our fellows have signed the
pledge because Kitchener wants them to. But they all say, 'God help the
Germans, when we get hold of them for making us teetotal.'"
What a Frenchman describes as the "new British battle-cry" is another
source of amusement.
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