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Updated: June 12, 2025


"Ants!" said McKay, after one glance. "Ants, not cooties. They're everywhere. Especially under the floor. That's one reason why folks sleep in hammocks down here. Even then they're likely to come down the hammock cords and drive you out." "Ants, hey? Never thought o' that. And I'd sooner spend another night fightin' all the man-eatin' jaggers in the jungle than them bugs.

The advertisement is quite right; the powder is good for "cooties," they simply thrive on it. The older men of our battalion were wiser and made scratchers out of wood. These were rubbed smooth with a bit of stone or sand to prevent splinters. They were about eighteen inches long, and Tommy guarantees that a scratcher of this length will reach any part of the body which may be attacked.

It meant freedom again from battle, murder, and sudden death, from trenches and stenches, rats, cooties, and all the rest that goes to make up the worst of man-made inventions, war. It was Friday the thirteenth. And don't let anybody dare say that date is unlucky. For it brought me back to the best thing that can gladden the eyes of a broken Tommy. Blighty! Blighty!! Blighty!!!

Imagine the three American soldiers and the "Y" man and the two British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces.

We twisted and turned, but the first ones to waken, tried to keep quiet, and it was not till every one was on the move that we realized that we had made our first acquaintance with the worst pest in the Army body lice, or "cooties" as they call them the straw on which we were lying was fairly alive with the little beasts.

Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly, "what are cooties?" Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in reply to Susan's horrified ejaculations, "It's always like that in the trenches, Susan." Susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel she had sewed up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb. "How can spring come and be beautiful in such a horror," wrote Rilla in her diary.

But it's paradise, after the trenches. For one thing there isn't the constant danger there is up front. The men aren't under steady fire. Of course, there's always the chance of a bomb dropping raid by a Taube or a Fokker. The men get a chance to clean up. They get baths, and their clothes are cleaned and disinfected. They get rid of the cooties you know what they are?" I could guess.

"Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off," said Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he lay on a sand bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at the "Y" man, who still stood on the bank.

For some obscure psychological reason, Tommy seems to like company on one of these hunts. Perhaps it is because misery loves company, or it may be that he likes to compare notes on the catch. Anyhow, it is a common thing to see from a dozen to twenty soldiers with their shirts off, hunting cooties. "Hi sye, 'Arry," you'll hear some one sing out. "Look 'ere.

The cooties were very active, as we were drenched with sweat and hadn't had a bath since heavens knew when. We had had about ten minutes' rest and were thinking about getting out of the harness when up came Mad Harry, one of our "leftenants", and ordered us out for foot inspection. I don't want to say anything unfair about this man. He is dead now. I saw him die. He was brave.

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