Anyone familiar with British politics during the war will agree that it was rather a neat code.
And it is said that a French Canadian commanding officer, in whose battalion a murder had been committed, had inserted in his orders of the day the following bit of unconscious humor:
"It is to be regretted that a murder has been committed in this battalion. This is the second murder in our Canadian forces. It is to be distinctly understood that this pernicious habit must cease forthwith."
Many amusing stories are told of the contents of letters censored at the front. Usually all the letters of a company or section are censored by the officers of the company or section. One of the best stories was told me by an English officer. A Tommy of his section wrote to his beloved:
"Dear Maggie: I'd a bally sight rather be in your arms than in this trench with a dead German!"
I sat one evening smoking a cigar with a Canadian Colonel who was much incensed at the fact that he had served at Gallipoli where he caught an infectious diarrhea of which he nearly died, while in the meantime his other officers who served no better than he were decorated and promoted.
"Manion," he said to me in an angry voice, "I was promised that if I went to the Mediterranean I would get promotion and any decoration they could get for me, and the only d---- thing I got was dysentery, and I wouldn't have got that if my superior officers had had the giving of it."
A rather good story with a touch of dry humor provoked by a desire for justice is that of the lonesome soldier. One of our Tommies sent an advertisement to an English daily in which he hinted, rather than said, that he was a duty-loving Briton, honorably doing his bit, and being without friends in the world he would welcome a correspondence with some English girl. He implied that, as the diet was rough, a few comforts would not go amiss, signing his advertisement, "H.H., a lonesome soldier." He was rewarded by a mail large enough for Horatio Bottomley, accompanied by so many parcels that our mail department had to add another man to its staff to handle his portion. Instead of imitating the generosity of these English girls, and sharing his ill-gotten gains with his companions, he chose the selfish part, keeping most of the good things for himself, giving away only what he had no possible use for. And what was still worse, he started a correspondence with each of the priceless young things who had offered him their goods and their friendship. Had this been a fair and square correspondence it might have had nothing to condemn it. But though uneducated, he was sly enough to suit his letters to their recipients. To one he implied the possibility of a strong attachment; to another he was more reserved, speaking only of friendship; while to a third he would send a warm, date-making epistle, hinting at cozy hotels; all according to what he thought their letters to him showed him of their characters.