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Updated: June 15, 2025
Groups of Tommies, in comfortable nooks and corners, were boiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of old iron buckets or biscuit tins. I marveled at the skill of our trench guide who went confidently on in the darkness, with scarcely a pause. At length, after a winding, zigzag journey, we arrived at our trench where we met the Gloucesters.
They parted at the corner by the river again, and Peter set out for his long walk home alone. It was a lovely evening of stars, cool, but not too cold, and at first the streets were full of people. He kept to the curb or walked in the road till he was out of the town, taking salutes automatically, his thoughts far away. The little cafés debits were crowded, largely by Tommies.
And yet Kitchener's own Tommies are responsible for it, the rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even at their own expense, and their intense dislike of "swank." They fastened the name upon themselves, lest the world at large should think they regarded themselves too highly. There it hangs. There it will hang for all time.
The Boers asked, "Why are not these "Tommies" required to take the oath before being liberated not to fight against us again?" I believe this would have been against the rules of civilised warfare, and we did not think it chivalrous to ask a man who was a prisoner to take an oath in return for his release.
There were also a few Tommies in khaki among the prisoners aft. It was very hot on the well deck, and for some hours we had no shelter from the blazing sun. Later on, a small awning was rigged up and we got a little protection, and one or two parasols were forthcoming for the use of the ladies.
I also made visits to the Abattoir, the French slaughter house where strays were taken, but he was not there, and I could only hope he had been taken by some Tommies, in which case I knew he would be well looked after. I missed him terribly. Work came in spasms, in accordance with the fighting of course, and when there was no special push on we had tremendous car inspections.
"If the Reverend Father suggests your name," he promised Mark, "I shall be glad to have you with us. Brother Chad is simply splendid, and the Tommies are wonderful. It's quite right of course to have a Mother House, but. . . ." He broke off, disinclined to criticize the direction of the Order's policy to a member so junior as Mark.
Not merely looting for profit, though I have seen Tommies take possession of the most ridiculous things perambulators and sewing machines, with a vague idea of carting them home somehow but looting for the sheer fun of the destruction; tearing down pictures to kick their boots through them; smashing furniture for the fun of smashing it, and may be dressing up in women's clothes to finish with, and dancing among the ruins they have made.
"Oh, you sweet thing!" she said. "Treasure!" Irene, in some ghastly way, seemed to take note of this. Why men like Captain Puffin and Major Flint found Irene "fetching" and "killing" was more than Miss Mapp could understand, or wanted to understand. Quaint Irene looked down at her basket. "Why, there's my lunch going over the top like those beastly British Tommies," she said, "Get back, love."
The joy of being able to get about again was such that I could have wept. The Tommies at the hospital took a tremendous interest in my progress. "Which one is it?" they would call as I went there each morning. "Pick it up, Miss, pick it up!" The fitter was a man of most wonderful patience and absolutely untiring in his efforts to do any little thing to ease the fitting.
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