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Updated: May 13, 2025
Now, there's some blokes as grouses all the time 'ere, Bert, you might 'and over your knife a moment to scrape the mud off me face, it all cracks, like, when I talk if they've got a Maconochie ration they wants bully beef, an' if they've got bully beef they carn't abear nothink but Maconochie.
He grouses at everything great or small which has no immediate or vital bearing on the situation. As soon as anything arises that would really warrant a grouse napoo! Tommy Atkins then begins to smile. He grouses when he has to clean his buttons; he grouses loudly and fiercely when a puttee frays to rags, and he grouses when his tea is too hot.
Tommy hates this, because it is hard work. Sometimes he fills his pack with straw to lighten it, and sometimes he gets caught. If he gets caught, he grouses at everything in general for twenty-one days, from the vantage point of a limber wheel. Next comes "C. B." meaning "Confined to Barracks." This consists of staying in billets or barracks for twenty-four hours to seven days.
Well, it was not too good leaving the horses; they would have preferred going into action with the "prads" but they didn't mind doing anything to get out of this God-forsaken country and into the real thing. So all was business; grouses were forgotten and a new day dawned. Each in his own way set about squaring up his kit, his saddlery and his affairs generally.
"Why for do I do it an' hate it? Say, that's jest one o' them things a feller can't tell. Y'see, a feller grouses thro' life, a-worritin' hisself 'cos things don't seem right by his way o' thinkin'. That's natteral. He guesses he wants to do things one way, then sudden-like, fer no reason he ken see, he gits doin' 'em another. That's natteral, too.
'E grouses a bit about the inconvenience o' the dark streets, an' then 'e goes on, "Everyone at 'ome is wonderin' why you fellows don't get a move on an' do somethin'. The official despatches keeps on sayin' 'no movement, or 'nothin' to report, or 'all quiet, till it looks as if you was all asleep. Why don't you get up an' go for 'em?" The Signaller paused and looked up.
Wood-hens. Roebuck pasties. Mavises. Coots, with leeks. Pigeon pies. Grouses. Fat kids. Kid pasties. Turtles. Shoulders of mutton, Capon pies. Doe-coneys. with capers. Bacon pies. Hedgehogs. Sirloins of beef. Soused hog's feet. Snites. Breasts of veal. Fried pasty-crust. Then large puffs. Pheasants and phea- Forced capons. Thistle-finches. sant poots. Parmesan cheese. Whore's farts. Peacocks.
If one suggests things to them or asks them leading questions, they will sometimes admit to certain deficiencies in food or treatment by the orderlies. But of what one did oneself or what the German sister left undone, there was never a complaint to me; though I rather think there were many grouses when once they left the hospital.
We slung together a dixie of char and some bacon and bread for breakfast, and marched around to the "quarters", where they issued "tin hats", extra "ammo", and a second gas helmet. A good many of the men had been out before, and they did the customary "grousing" over the added load. The British Tommy growls or grouses over anything and everything. He's never happy unless he's unhappy.
He found consolation in confessing the Irishmen before they went into the trenches: "The bhoys fight all the better for it," he explained. He was sure of the salvation of his flock; the only doubts he had were about his own. We all loved him. There is one great difference between life in billets and life in the trenches. In billets the soldier "grouses" often, in trenches never.
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