Officer: "Any change to-night, corporal?"
Corporal: "Rahnd 'uns instead of square 'uns, sir."--_R. Pitt (late M.G.C.), 54 Holland Park Avenue, W.11._
Taking up ammunition to the guns at Passchendaele Ridge, I met a few infantrymen carrying duckboards.
My mule was rather in the way and so one of the infantrymen, who belonged to a London regiment, gave him a push with his duckboard.
Naturally, the mule simply let out and kicked him into a shell-hole full of water.
We got the unlucky fellow out, and his first action was to shake his fist at the mule and say: "There's only one thing I don't like in this blinking war and that's those perishin' mules!"--_H. E. Richards (R.F.A.), 67 Topsham Road, Upper Tooting, S.W.17._
In 1917, when we were acting as mobile artillery, we had halted by the roadside to water and feed our horses, and were just ready to move off when we were passed by a column of the Chinese Labour Corps, about 2,000 of them.
After they had all passed, a gunner from Clerkenwell said: "Would yer believe it? All that lot gorn by and I never reckernised a Townie!"--_C. Davis (late Sergeant, R.A., 3rd Cavalry Division), 7 Yew Tree Villas, Welling, Kent._
On the way from the Marne to the Aisne in September 1914 the 5th Cavalry Brigade passed a column of Algerian native troops, who had been drawn up in a field to allow us to continue along the nearby road.
The column had all the gaudy appearance of shop windows at Christmas. There were hooded vehicles with stars and crescents blazoned on them, drawn by bullocks, mules, and donkeys. The natives themselves were dressed, some in white robes and turbans, others in red "plus four" trousers and blue "Eton cut" jackets; and their red fezzes were adorned with stars and crescents. Altogether a picturesque sight, and one we did not expect to meet on the Western Front.
On coming into view of this column, one of our lead drivers (from Bow) of a four-horse team drawing a pontoon wagon turned round to his wheel driver, and, pointing to the column with his whip, shouted, "Alf! Sanger's Circus!"--_H. W. Taylor (late R.E.), The Lodge, Radnor Works, Strawberry Vale, Twickenham._
When the rumour reached us about a medal for the troops who went out at the beginning, a few of us were sitting in a dug-out outside Ypres discussing the news.
