As they were filing out one of the relief party said to one of those coming out, "Who are you?"
"'Oo are we?" came the reply. "Cahn't yer see we're the fust 'ouse comin' aht o' the pit?"--_K. Haddon, 379 Rotherhithe New Road, North Camberwell, S.E.16._
A horrible wet night on the Locre-Dranoutre Road in 1914. A narrow strip of pavé road and, on either side, mud of a real Flanders consistency.
I was on my lawful occasions in a car, which was following a long supply column of five-ton lorries.
[Illustration: "'Ere, ally off the perishin' pavé, you knight in shinin' armour."]
I need scarcely say that the car did not try to forsake the comparative security of the pavé, but when a check of about a quarter of an hour occurred, I got down from the car and stumbled through the pouring rain, well above the boot-tops in mud, to the head of the column.
Impasse barely describes the condition of things, for immediately facing the leading lorry was a squadron of French Cuirassiers, complete with "tin bellies" and helmets with horse-hair trimmings.
This squadron was in command of a very haughty French captain, who seemed, in the light of the lorry's head-lamps, to have a bigger cuirass and helmet than his men.
He was faced by a diminutive sergeant of the A.S.C., wet through, fed up, but complete with cigarette.
Neither understood the other's language, but it was quite obvious that neither would leave the pavé for the mud. Did the sergeant wring his hands or say to the officer, "Mon Capitaine, je vous en prie, etc."? He did not. He merely stood there, and, removing his cigarette from his mouth, uttered these immortal words:
"'Ere, ally off the perishing pavé, you son of a knight in shinin' armour!"
And, believe me or believe me not, that is what the haughty one and his men did.--_"The Ancient Mariner," Sutton, Surrey._
One pitch black rainy night I was bringing up the rear of a party engaged in carrying up the line a number of trench mortar bombs known as "toffee-apples."
We had become badly tailed-off during our progress through a maze of communication trenches knee-deep in mud, and as I staggered at last into the support trench with my load I spied a solitary individual standing on the fire-step gazing over the parapet.