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Updated: June 24, 2025
He wrote: "One of my best friends has just been killed"; and the "best friend" was not the fellow he had known at "the shop," or played polo with in India, or hunted with in Ireland, but a scamp of a telephonist, who had stolen his whisky and owned up; who had risked his life for him, who had been a fellow-sportsman who could be relied on in a tight corner in the most risky of all games.
Just after came another call on his instrument, and the repair party told him they had crossed the neutral ground, had one man wounded in the arm, that he was going on with them, and they were still following up the wire. The message ceased, and the telephonist, leaning his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, was almost asleep before he realized it.
The doctor toddled off, and I got the telephonist to ring through to the colonel. "The enemy seems to be waiting. He's not troubling our infantry," he informed me, and then added, "Has the kit been got away from the quarry yet?"
I made sure that the telephonist was ringing up each battery every ten minutes to see that the lines were in working order, and then climbed up the railway bank and walked over to inquire if the brigade-major had any news. He hadn't. "And try and keep in touch with us on this line," he added. "It's the only way we have at the moment of speaking to your Brigade."
Our telephonist 'phoned headquarters for the weightier women to get busy, telling them of our plight, and inside six minutes the ladies of larger girth, the 9.02 howitzers, started debating the question with Fritzie so vigorously that inside of thirty minutes not a single reply was to be had from their guns. "Stand down!" and cleaning our guns, gun pits and carrying ammunition, busied us.
The Forward Officer fixed his eyes on the string of white smoke-puffs with their centre of winking flame that burst and burst and burst unceasingly. If one showed out of its proper place he shouted to the telephonist and named the delinquent gun, and asked for the lay and fuse-setting to be checked.
The telephonist opened his case and lifted out his instrument, groped along the trench wall a few yards and found his wire, joined up to his instruments, dashed off a series of dots and dashes on the 'buzzer, and spoke into his mouthpiece. No. 2 Platoon watched in fascinated silence and again gave all their attention to listening as the Artillery officer took the receiver.
"Ghastly business . . . cruel messy smash, he murmured. 'Beg pardon, sir? said the telephonist. The Forward Officer made no answer but continued to stare after the disappearing stretcher-bearers. The signaller shuffled his feet in the mud and hitched up the strap of the instrument on his shoulder. 'I suppose it's all over now, sir, he said.
For a front-line trench and an attack started by the enemy, the S.O.S. signal is passed from the trench, either through the telephonist in the trenches, or by means of colored star shells.
I can't see very well from here, so I'm going to move along a bit. . . . Very well, sir, I'll tap in again higher up. . . . Good-bye. He handed back the instrument to the telephonist. 'Pack up again, he said, 'and come along. When he had gone No. 2 Platoon turned eagerly on the telephonist, and he ran a gauntlet of anxious questions as he followed the Forward Officer.
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