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The old man thinks the Fritzies have a strong grouch against this little alley, and since they couldn't take it top side last week they're going to try to bust it out bottom side with a big bang some day soon. Maybe so maybe just greens but, anyway, you've got to go on the Q. T. with this job no noise, don't even whisper unless you have to; just listen for all you're worth.
They were on the outside of the trench as well as the inside, and then started the damnedest scrap I was ever in. Two of the boys were armed with rifle and bayonet, and I had a revolver. We shot those Fritzies just as fast as they stood up, and then they lay down and threw hand grenades at us. How we killed all those in the trench I don't know, things are hazy in my mind.
The bird kept on his downward plunge until he reached his objective, and as he dove into the vultures, our anti-aircraft guns, which had been endeavoring to wing the German birds, ceased fire and all eyes were turned heavenward. With bated breath we watched and waited the outcome. The Fritzies spread out in circle formation, with a view to surrounding it, each a little higher than the other.
The man with the gripes who retched was still retching as he heaved himself up over the parapet; the man who had laughed was still laughing; the man who had sworn was mechanically continuing to repeat that naughty pet name of his for the Fritzies.
Benson had to go to help the boys hold the Fritzies in the next line of trenches. After awhile along came the Germans the stretcher bearer saw them as they passed the entrance. In the dugout we all kept as still as we could. There were thirty of us, all badly wounded, and caught like rats in a trap. The Germans did not bother coming down, but they threw bombs in every time they passed.
In daytime their elevation enabled them to see over a great expanse of that level, war-ruined region. There they were, open carriages below, in each a small group of Fritzies with machine gun and bombs handy for use in times like the present. But here, too, Fritz was at a decided disadvantage.
I was with the Fritzies for over a week, and they certainly have it soft and cushy. They have as good food as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence a day, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and kept clean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almost anything in the way of delicacies.
"Me in a tin derby potting Fritzies! And there’s Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe the whole bunch sewed up in this here trench, oh my God!" I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him. "Duck," I said, amazed, "how did you come to enlist in the Foreign Legion?" "Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got drunk." "Where?"
I suppose one only learns the value of kindness when he feels the need of it himself. The men out there have said "Good-bye" to everything they loved, but they've got to love some one so they give their affections to captured Fritzies, stray dogs, fellows who've collected a piece of a shell in fact to any one who's a little worse off than themselves.
And while Waddy got over kind of late he had the luck to be in a replacement unit that made the whoop-la advance into Belgium after the Hun line had cracked. Seems it was up in some dinky Belgian town where the Fritzies had been runnin' things for four years that Waddy meets this fair lady with the impulsive manners.
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