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Updated: May 13, 2025
The brute took me at my word and sent me back to the battalion. I rejoined on the Somme again just as they were going back for the second time in that most awful part of the line. Many of the old faces were gone. Some had got the wooden cross, and some had gone to Blighty. I sure was glad when old Wellsie hopped out and grabbed me. "Gawd lumme, Darby," he said.
When I rejoined the battalion they were just going into the Somme again after a two weeks' rest. They didn't like it a bit. "Gawd lumme," says Wellsie, "'ave we got to fight th' 'ole blinkin' war. Is it right? I awsks yer. Is it?" It was all wrong.
This party had to go over the duck walk and was under fire both going and coming. One of the corporals who had been out on rations two nights in succession began to "grouse." I "groused" too, like a good fellow, but had to go. "Garn," says Wellsie. "Wot's the diff if yer gets it 'ere or there. If ye clicks, I'll draw yer fags from Blighty and say a prayer for yer soul. On yer way."
He did and in about half an hour came back with a face as long as my arm. I was sitting on the fire step cleaning my rifle and Wellsie sank dejectedly down beside me. "Darby," he sighed hopelessly, "wot th' blinkin' 'ell do you think is up now?" I hadn't the faintest idea and said so. I had, however, as the educated Bones used to say "a premonition of impending disaster."
Cheerful beggar, Wellsie. He was doing me a favor and didn't know it. I did the three miles along the duck walk with the ration party, and there wasn't a shell came our way. Queer! Nor on the way back. Queerer! When we were nearly back and were about five hundred yards from the base of the Pimple, a dead silence fell on the German side of the line.
As a premonitor I was a success. Disaster was right. Wellsie sighed again and spilled the news. "We're goin' over th' bleedin' top at nine. We don't 'ave to carry no tools. We're in the first bloomin' wave." Going without tools was supposed to be a sort of consolation for being in the first wave. The other three waves carry either picks or shovels.
Wellsie sized the situation up one day when we were talking about this very thing. "Maybe my shell ayen't doin' me no good," says Wells. "Maybe Dinky ayen't doin' you no good. But 'e ayen't doin' ye no 'arm. So 'ang on to 'im." I figure that if there's anything in war that "ayen't doin' ye no 'arm", it is pretty good policy to "'ang on to it."
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