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I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly, relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves en route for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home.
Three months later the Medical Officer sat talking to the C.O. in the Headquarter dug-out. "As for old Dymond," he said, "he ought never to have been sent out here again. He's done his bit already, and they ought to have given him a 'cushy' job at home, instead of one of those young staff blighters" for the M.O. was no respecter of persons, and even a "brass hat" failed to awe him.
A "cushy" wound, a long and aching journey in a motor ambulance, a nerve-racking night in a clearing hospital, where the groans of the dying, the hurrying of the orderlies, and your own pain all combine in a nightmare of horror, and next morning you are in the train once more you are going back to the Base. But how different is this from the journey up to the front!
It goes like this: "Oh, Fritzie that hands those Blighties out so free, Just send a nice sweet cushy one to me One that will strike me just below the knee. Six months in Blighty oh, how sweet 'twould be! "Send me a shell with pellets nice and round; Scatter them, all but one, upon the ground; Send me that one, but let it come a mile, And I will give you the sunshine of my smile."
Before leaving for this assignment I went along the front-line trench saying good-bye to my mates and lording it over them, telling them that I had clicked a cushy job behind the lines, and how sorry I felt that they had to stay in the front line and argue out the war with Fritz.
I pointed out that there were many men in England half his age who had done nothing but secure cushy jobs for themselves. "Well, Miss," he said, as I rose to leave, "it'll give me great pleasure to drive you about London for three days when the war's over, and in my best taxi, too, with the silver vauses!"
Usually "rest" means that you are set to mending roads or some such fatigue duty. At Petite-Saens, however, we had it "cushy." The routine was about like this: Up at 6:30, we fell in for three-quarters of an hour physical drill or bayonet practice. Breakfast. Inspection of ammo and gas masks. One hour drill. After that, "on our own", with nothing to do but smoke, read, and gamble.
Not that he was frightened, nor that he had failed to recognize in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested, half-drowsy low of a cow, but that it was so near him evidently just beside the wall. If an object so bulky could have approached him so near without his knowledge, might not she "Moo-oo!" He drew nearer the wall cautiously. "So, Cushy! Mooly! Come up, Bossy!" he said persuasively.
To draw some disagreeable job, as: I clicked a burial fatigue. Communication trench A trench leading up to the front trench. Consolidate To turn around and prepare for occupation a captured trench. Cootie The common, the too common, body louse. Everybody has 'em. Crater A round pit made by an underground explosion or by a shell. Cushy Easy. Soft.
I was in 'is trench with a machine gun when 'e got 'is little bit. A chunk out of an 'and grenade 'it 'im in the thigh, and 'e laughed like 'ell becos 'e'd got a 'cushy' wound. Why, 'e even said as 'ow 'e could walk down to the dressing station, and we envied 'im like 'ell and thought it was only a flesh wound. I got 'it the next day and went to the same 'orspital where 'e was.
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