We ha' only just
amputated your leg!'
"So I think I ha' been to the war, but I can only say I think so. I
only know what I was told--that ha' never seen a damn German yet!"
That is a true story of Tamson the baker. And his experience has
actually been shared by many a poor fellow--and by many another who
might have counted himself lucky if he had lost no more than a leg,
as Tamson did.
But the laddies of my battery, though they were shooting now at
Germans they could not see, had had many a close up view of Fritz in
the past, and expected many another in the future. Maybe they will
get one, some time, after the fashion of the company of which my boy
John once told me.
The captain of this company--a Hieland company, it was, though not of
John's regiment--had spent must of his time in London before the war,
and belonged to several clubs, which, in those days, employed many
Germans as servants and waiters. He was a big man, and he had a deep,
bass voice, so that he roared like the bull of Bashan when he had a
mind to raise it for all to hear.
One day things were dull in his sector. The front line trench was not
far from that of the Germans, but there was no activity beyond that
of the snipers, and the Germans were being so cautious that ours were
getting mighty few shots. The captain was bored, and so were the men.
"How would you like a pot shot, lads?" he asked.
"Fine!" came the answer.
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