[Illustration: "There's only seven wonders."]
One of our number, a hefty Cockney, besides being in full marching order, had a bag of bombs and a couple of screw pickets. A sergeant then handed him some petrol tins. With a look of profound disgust, the Cockney dropped the tins and remarked, "Chuck it, mate; there's only seven wonders in this blinkin' world."--_W. G. H. Cox (late 16th London Regt.), 9 Longstaff Crescent, Southfields, S.W.18._
While en route from the Western to the Italian front we were held up at an Italian wayside station and, hearing that we had some time to wait, our cook says, "Nah's our chance to make some tea."
So we dragged our boiler on to the end of the platform, scrounged some wood, and soon had the fire going and the water on the boil. "Nah we will get the tea and sugar," says the cook. When we returned we found that the chimney of the boiler had disappeared, smoke and flames were roaring up, and the water was ruined by soot.
An Italian soldier was standing by, looking on. "Somebody's pinched our chimbley," gasped the cook, "and I've got an idea that this Italian fellow knows somefing abaht it."
Back came the reply from the Italian, in pure Cockney: "I ain't pinched yer chimbley, mate!"
"What! yer speak our lingo?" says the cook. "What part of the Village do yer come from?"
"Give us yer mitt," says the cook. "I'm from the same parish. And nah I knows that yer couldn't 'ave pinched our chimbley. It must have been one of them scrounging Cockneys."--_H. Howard, 26 Hanover Street, Islington, N.1._
Night after night, for three weeks, with never a night off, we took ammunition up for the guns at Ypres in 1917. Sometimes we couldn't get back until 5 a.m. or 6 a.m.--and the day was spent feeding and grooming the horses, cleaning harness, and a hundred odd jobs besides.
We had built a bit of a shack, and in this I was writing a letter home, and one of my drivers noticed my handwriting on the envelope.
"Coo, Corp! You can't 'arf write! 'Ow did yer learn it?" he said.
I told him I had been in an insurance office before I joined up.
"Lumme!" he exclaimed, "did yer _work_ once, Corp?"--_David Phillips (late R.F.A.), The Ship Inn, Soham, near Ely, Cambridgeshire._