United States or Belarus ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
However, want of courage was not one of his failings. He bounded blindly forward by himself. Try as he would he could not overtake the raiding party. However, this mattered little, for suddenly a parapet loomed before him. In this same parapet, low down, Nigg beheld a black and gaping aperture plainly a loophole of some kind.
Private Nigg, who, as already mentioned, was slightly wanting in quickness of perception, was led away by the faithful Buncle, to have the outrage explained to him at leisure. It was Private Bogle who intervened, and brought the intellectual Goliath crashing to the ground.
Without a moment's hesitation, Nigg hurled a Mills grenade straight through the loophole, and then with one wild screech of "Come away, boys!" took a flying leap over the parapet and landed in his own trench, in the arms of Corporal Mucklewame. As already noted, it is difficult, when lying curled up in a circular shell-hole in the dark, to maintain a true sense of direction.
To the extreme discomfort and shame of a respectable citizen of Bannockburn, one Private Buncle, the more hairy of the two visitors, upon recovering his feet, promptly flung his arms around his neck and kissed him on both cheeks. The outrage was repeated, by his companion, upon Private Nigg. At the same time both visitors broke into a joyous chant of "Russky! Russky!"
Now, it is an undoubted fact, that if you curl yourself up, with two or three preliminary twirls, after the fashion of a dog going to bed, in a perfectly circular shell-hole, on a night as black as the inside of the dog in question, you are extremely likely to lose your sense of direction. This is what happened to Private Nigg.
"I can," replied Mr. Johnson with relish, "and I will. They got in all right, but you didn't see them, because they was disguised." Cosh and Tosh snorted disdainfully, and Private Nigg, who was present with his friend Buncle, inquired "What way was they disguised?" Like lightning came the answer "As a joke! Oh, you Jocks."
"I dinna mean onything o' the kind," he roared. "What I intend tae imply is this, Sandy Nigg. Some place over there there is a bullet in a Gairman's pooch, and one day that bullet will find its way intil your insides as sure as if your name was written on it! That's what I meant. Jist a mainner of speakin'. Dae ye unnerstand me the noo?"
Private Nigg perches a steel helmet on the point of a bayonet, and patronisingly bobs the same up and down above the parapet. These steel helmets have not previously been introduced to the reader's notice. They are modelled upon those worn in the French Army and bear about as much resemblance to the original pattern as a Thames barge to a racing yacht.
The quartette consists of Privates Cosh and Tosh, together with Privates Buncle and Nigg, preparing their midday meal. "Tak' off your damp chup, Jimmy," suggested Tosh to Buncle, who was officiating as stoker. "Ye mind what the Captain said aboot smoke?" "It wasna the Captain: it was the Officer," rejoined Buncle cantankerously.
"What way could a Gairman pit my name on a bullet?" demanded Nigg triumphantly. "He doesna ken it!" "Man," exclaimed Cosh, shedding some of his philosophic calm, "can ye no unnerstand that what I telled ye was jist a mainner of speakin'? When I said that a man's name was on a bullet, I didna mean that it was written there."
Word Of The Day