"You can't expect a
blooming Ritz Hotel in the firing line," is how a jocular Cockney puts
it. An artilleryman says they would fare sumptuously if it weren't for
the German shells at meal times: "one shell, for instance, shattered our
old porridge pot before we'd had a spoonful out of it!" Lieutenant
Jardine, a son of Sir John Jardine, M.P., relates this same incident.
Gunner Prince, R.F.A., has a little joke about the sleeping quarters:
"Just going to bed. Did I say bed? I mean under the gun with an overcoat
for a blanket." There is no sort of grumbling at all. As Lieutenant
Stringer, of the 5th Lancers, expresses it, the A.S.C. "manage things
very well, and our motto is 'always merry and bright.'"
Occasionally, when there is a lull in the operations, the men dine
gloriously. Stories are told of gargantuan feeds--of majestic stews that
can be scented even in the German lines. Occasionally, too, there is the
capture of a banquet prepared for the enemy's officers as the following
message from the _Standard_ illustrates: "A small party of our cavalry
were out on reconnaissance work, scouring woods and searching the
countryside. Just about dusk a hail of bullets came upon our party from
a small spinney of fir trees on the side of a hill. We instantly wheeled
off as if we were retreating, but, in fact, we merely pretended to
retire and galloped round across plowed land to the other side of the
spinney, fired on the men, and they mounted their horses and flew like
lightning out of their 'supper room.
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