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On the last occasion when I was let loose from the front on ticket-of-leave, I added twenty-four hours to my Blighty period by a chance meeting with a friendly ferry-pilot and a resultant trip as passenger in an aeroplane from a home depôt.
And so he puts in his time hoping for a wound that will be "cushy" enough not to discommode him much and that will be bad enough to swing Blighty on. Sometimes when he wants very much to get back he stretches his conscience to the limit and it is pretty elastic anyhow and he fakes all sorts of illness. The M.O. is usually a bit too clever for Tommy, however, and out and out fakes seldom get by.
The fuse was timed to five seconds or longer. Some of the fuses issued in those days would burn down in a second or two, while others would "sizz" for a week before exploding. Back in Blighty the munition workers weren't quite up to snuff, the way they are now. If the fuse took a notion to burn too quickly, they generally buried the bombmaker next day.
Bealer was bright enough and quick enough after that to play it up and was tagged for Blighty. He had it thrust upon him. And you can bet he grabbed it and thanked his lucky stars. We had been on Mill Street a day and a night when an order came for our company to move up to the second line and to be ready to go over the top the next day.
I looked and saw a gaping hole two inches in diameter. "I think that's a Blighty one, isn't it?" I remarked. "I should just think so, sir!" he replied. "Thank God! At last!" I murmured vehemently, conjuring up visions of the good old homeland. The orderly painted the iodine round both wounds and put on a larger bandage. At this moment R , an officer of "D" company, came limping into Cross Street.
I had had a plenty. And I was going to make my get-away before the British War Office changed its mind and got me back in uniform. Mrs. Puttee and her eldest son saw me off at Euston Station. Leaving them was the one wrench, as they had become very dear to me. But I had to go. If Blighty had looked good, the thought of the U.S.A. was better. My passage was uneventful.
"Is old Alf all right?" asked another signaller quickly. "Yes" nodding and grinning "he's got a nice Blighty he's all right.... As I was sayin', he hit old Alf in the foot, and Mr Biles says to me, 'We'll get that blighter. So we dropped, and Mr Biles crawled away to the right and I went to the left. He popped off again after about five minutes, and I saw where the shot came from.
This brought quite a laugh from the marching column directed at me, and I instantly made up my mind that our sketch should immediately run in opposition to 'Blighty What Hopes? When we returned to our billet from the march, Curley Wallace, my theatrical partner, came running over to me and said he had found a swanky place in which to produce our show.
Sunburnt and healthy they looked as they shouted after us: "Good luck, boys, give our love to Blighty." At the end of the village the ambulance swung off on a road leading to the left. It must have crossed the track by which my platoon and I had gone up the night before. About 11.30 A.M. we arrived at Couin, the headquarters of the First Field Ambulance.
Each time an ambulance car, loaded with broken and nerve-shattered men, stopped by the hospital entrance, a young donkey brayed joyously from a field facing the doorway, as if to shout "Never say die!" Most of the casualties echoed the sentiment, for they seemed full of beans and congratulated themselves and each other on their luck in getting Blighty ones.
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