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It is a wonder it did not stun you. And please do move out of there for a while at least, for fear it may be still alive." I glanced up at the pollard willow over head, against which I had been leaning to steady my field glasses as I watched our artillery "strafe" the Germans who were attacking the Ghurkas. Captain Musgrove stood by my side when the shell arrived.

He squints oop in the morn an' he speers a fine machine ower by his lines. "'Hoot! says he, 'yon wee feller is Scottish, A'm thinkin' go you, Fritz an' Hans an' Carl an' Heinrich, an' strafe the puir body. "'Nay, says his oonder lootenant. 'Nein, he says, 'ye daunt knaw what ye're askin', Herr Lootenant. "'What's wrong wi' ye? says the oberlootenant.

When out of the firing-line we washed and mended our clothing and scraped a week's accumulation of mud from our uniforms. Before breakfast we were inflicted with the old punishment, Swedish drill. "Gott strafe Sweden!" Tommy would say as he puffed and perspired under a hot August sun, but he was really glad that he had no choice but to submit.

"'I haf received; the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel of metal shields, plates what you call 'em of tin, hein? What I haf to advertise my business. They arrife las' week I open the parcel myself and on the top is the envelope with the invoice. "Mynheer paused; he has a good sense of the dramatic. "'Well', I said, 'did it bite you or say "Gott strafe England?" Or what?

Put the stuff back of the native-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Company office-buildings, and anywhere else you can." The lieutenant nudged him and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard. "Here go the flares, now." Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeing enemy.

Poor Clarke, one of the brightest, merriest-hearted boys we had, seldom got a letter, but he was right on hand every time, and when there was no letter for him, would tear his hair dramatically and cry, "Gott strafe England." Clarke had the good gift of making everybody laugh. I remember once seeing him patching his trousers with a Union Jack, and singing, "We'll never let the Old Flag fall!"

There were mighty few lights in evidence; you do not advertise a road to Fritz's airplanes when you are traveling roads anywhere near the front, for he has guns of long range, that can at times manage to strafe a road that is supposed to be beyond the zone of fire with a good deal of effect I have seldom seen a blacker night than that.

For two hours I saturated myself with German contemporary thought as expressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open to conviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: "We Germans are fighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gott strafe England!" Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look back upon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time.

But the next time that a German-American has gone back to Berlin and has reached the western front and puts up a sign reading "Gott strafe England" let him not fail to add these words, "and Scotland." "England Shall Not Starve" Despite all warnings, rumours, and alarms, no dire peril known to passengers disturbed our voyage.

When they finally emerged most cautiously and approached the object of their terror, they read this inscription on it: "April Fool Gott strafe England."