“Has any one asked him it yet?” one inquired, referring to some question to the guest.
“Not yet? Then all together: When do you think that the war will be over?”
It was the eternal question of the trenches, the army and the world. We had it over with before the soldier cook brought on the roast chicken, which was received with a befitting chorus of approbation:
Who would carve? Who knew how to carve? Modesty passed the honour to its neighbour, till a brave man said:
_Gott strafe England!_ _Strafe_ has become a noun, a verb, an adjective, a cussword, and a term of greeting. Soldier asks soldier how he is strafing to-day. When the Germans are not called _Boches_ they are called Strafers. “Won’t you strafe a little for us?” Tommy sings out to the German trenches when they are close. What hopes!
That gallant youngster of the K. O. P. F. in the midst of bantering advice succeeded in separating the meat from the bones without landing a leg in anybody’s lap or a wing in anybody’s eye. Timid spectators who had hung back where he had dared might criticise his form, but they could not deny the efficiency of his execution. He was appointed permanent “strafer” of all the fowls that came to table.
Everybody talked and joked about everything, from plays in London to the Germans. There were arguments about favourite actors and military methods. The sense of danger was as absent as if we had been dining in a summer garden. It was the parents and relatives in pleasant English homes in fear of a dread telegram who were worrying, not the sons and brothers in danger. Isn’t it better that way? Would not the parents prefer it that way? Wasn’t it the way of the ancestors in the scarlet coats and the Merrie England of their day? With the elasticity of youth my hosts adapted themselves to circumstances. In their light-heartedness they made war seem a keen sport. They lived war for all it was worth. If it gets on their nerves their efficiency is spoiled. There is no room for a jumpy, excitable man in the trenches. Youth’s resources defy monotony and death at the same time.
An expedition had been planned for that night. A patrol the previous night had brought in word that the Germans had been sneaking up and piling sandbags in the wheat-field. The plan was to slip out as soon as it was really dark with a machine gun and a dozen men, get behind the Germans’ own sandbags, and give them a perfectly informal reception when they returned to go on with their work.