Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
They groused and growled, maintained that their physical condition was becoming worn down by the excess of work, insisted angrily that a rest should be a REST and not a camouflaged existence of heavy fatigues, pointed out that if Jerry came over he would find them too utterly washed out to jab a bayonet into an ounce of butter, much less a man, and finally demanded in disgust "if they were the only available Battalion in the Army and whether they had to clean up the whole bloomin' Front?"
"If we'd only got the Rotherwood billiard table there'd be something to do!" groused Egbert gloomily. "There isn't a corner in this poky hole where a fellow can fiddle with photography," chimed in Athelstane, "even if there was time to do it. When I get back from Birkshaw it's nothing but grind, grind, grind at medical books all the evening." "Rather have your job than mine, though," said Egbert.
Mother had stopped to speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed, but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had groused about the English climate they had some cause, she thought, considering the climate they had come from; and they were cheerful about the war she could remember that, for their voices had followed them through the fog singing "Australia will be there!" to what she had thought was a very lively and pleasant tune and yet Mother had tears in her eyes.
It contained three manuscripts, and a printed notice to the effect that the editor of the Blue Magazine much regretted his inability, owing to lack of space, to make use of the enclosed, for the kind offer of which he was much obliged. "My stories packed back by return of post. How disgusting!" groused Hilary. "He might have taken one of them. Are they all here, by the by?
Of course, that sort of thing was only to be expected, but Smoky was particularly annoyed, as he had succeeded in procuring the snuggest corner of the place. So, muttering and growling, they gathered up their goods and chattels, and shoved and groused along crowded alley-ways. Embarkations and disembarkations always were a severe trial of the temper.
Let there be no mistake about it; it was a miracle and one performed only by the most complete abnegation of self. Men who doubtless would have groused at home had they been asked to work for a couple of hours overtime at bank or office or works, here slaved for twenty-four hours at a stretch without bite or sup, and then after a short rest went on for another twenty-four.
The result of it was that Mansell and his friends got filled with an enormous sense of their own importance; they considered themselves the only people in the House who were keen. And they let the rest of the House know it. They groused about "the great days of Lovelace," and gave people like Rudd a most godless time.
The censor had always good yarns to tell. The men showed generally much good-humour and a universal light-heartedness. Our wounded hardly ever "groused." They hid their troubles and cheered their families, seldom or never by pious sentiments.
And let me tell you, mister, that a man that wasn't satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Jules and then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have groused at Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier every day. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation in the girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were.
No one any longer spoke of us as a "bad lot," or called us "a tough crowd." Perhaps we were not so tough. Certainly we cannot have been tougher than the men who made good in those first terrific days, who continued to make good long after they could fight no more, staggering through the Somme mud with laden stretchers. They grumbled and groused. They blasphemed constantly.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking