Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 5, 2025
Two men who had eaten to repletion could not hope to occupy the same apartment. One had a choice of going to bed hungry or of eating heartily and sleeping outside on the firing-bench. "'Ere's a funny thing," he said. "W'y do you suppose they makes the dugouts open at one end?" I had no explanation to offer. "Crawl inside an' I'll show you."
Week after week we should be living like this, killing and being killed, binding up terrible wounds, digging graves, always doing the same work with not one bright or pleasant thing to look forward to. These were my thoughts as I sat on the firing-bench with my head drawn down between my knees watching the water dripping from the edges of my puttees.
Our first question was, of course, "How far is it to the German lines?" and in his eagerness to see, my fellow Tommy jumped up on the firing-bench for a look, with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. He was pulled down into the trench just as a rifle cracked and a bullet went zing-g-g from the parapet precisely where he had been standing.
Eight hours in twenty-four four two-hour shifts each man stands at his post on the firing-bench, rifle in hand, keeping a sharp lookout over the "front yard." At night he observes as well as he can over the top of the parapet; in the daytime by means of his periscope. Most of our large periscopes were shattered by keen-sighted German snipers.
An officer near me shouted, "Now, men! Follow me!" and clambered over the parapet. There was no hesitation. In a moment the trench was empty save for the bomb-carrying parties and an artillery observation officer, who was jumping up and down on the firing-bench, shouting "Go it, the Norfolks! Go it, the Norfolks! My God! Isn't it fine! Isn't it splendid!"
By this time every Tommy along the line is standing on the firing-bench, head and shoulders above the parapet, quite forgetting his own danger in his excitement, and shouting at the top of his voice. "'Ow's that one, Fritzie boy?" "Gooten morgen, you Proosian sausage-wallopers!" "Tyke a bit o' that there 'ome to yer missus!" But Fritzie could be depended upon to keep up his end of the game.
I asked him. "'Eard a flute some Fritzie was a-playin' of. An' you ought to 'ave 'eard 'em a-singin'! Doleful as 'ell!" Several men were killed and wounded during the night. One of them was a sentry with whom I had been talking only a few moments before. He was standing on the firing-bench looking out into the darkness, when he fell back into the trench without a cry. It was a terrible wound.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking