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Updated: May 2, 2025
We were in a hot-bed of artillery batteries. Suddenly a shell dropped close to us. Three of our party were wounded Sergeant Donovan, Lance-Corporal Segar and Private Hampson. Lance-Corporal Segar had a large slice out of his hip, but only a flesh wound, a nice, but painful, 'Blighty'! Donovan and Hampson had slight wounds; they were 'walking cases, but it will be hospital for them all right.
Between 11.30 and noon he is dismissed, has his dinner, and is "on his own" for the remainder of the day, unless he has clicked for a digging or working party, and so it goes on from day to day, always "looping the loop" and looking forward to Peace and Blighty. Sometimes, while engaged in a "cootie" hunt you think.
A pig was pushing its snout into it here and there and grunting from time to time. There was no other sign of life anywhere. A dreary, depressing landscape! "Remember Belgium!" said one of the men in the ranks derisively. "We won't forget it in a hurry!" "Fritz can have it for all I care!" "He's welcome to it I don't want it, I want to get back to Blighty!" We were called to attention.
As there seemed to be no objection to this freedom of speech, Tom ventured a question. "Is this Germany?" "Germany? No, it's the Cannibal Islands," said the sailor, and everyone except the guard laughed. "You're not from Blighty, eh?" the sailor asked. "I'm American," said Tom; "I was ship's boy on a transport and I fell off and a U-boat picked me up."
Williams gave a tea and dance in the afternoon at her canteen up at Fontinettes. It was a picturesque-looking place with red brick floor, artistic-looking tables with rough logs for legs and a large open fireplace, typically English, which must have rejoiced the hearts of men so far from Blighty.
I got the wind up terribly 'cause I knew my turn was coming. He only gave me a Blighty though I reckon I'm bloody lucky!" "We was ready for to go over the top an' waitin' for the whistle to blow. We didn't 'alf 'ave the wind up. You could 'ear the teeth chatterin' all along the trench. I was shiverin' all over, I...." "Next man!"
As evidence that they both were of the right stuff, neither of them platitudinised: "It's a small world, isn't it?" The smooth-running train sped northward from the Somme battlefield, and we betted on each man's chances of being sent to Blighty.
He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and was now at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzed leg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided the previous spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission.
To take you to "Blighty" a wound must mean permanent disablement, otherwise you either convalesced in the country or, at best, were sent to India. In the same manner there were no short leaves, for there was nowhere to go.
After gliding across the trenches, he landed among some dug-outs inhabited by sappers, and made use of much the same vocabulary as when he crashed at Dovstone Marmaduke shot down several Hun machines during the weeks that followed, but on the very day of his posting for a decoration a Blighty bullet gave him a return ticket to England and a mention in the casualty list.
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