I was driving a lorry along the road from Dickebusch to Ypres when the Germans started shelling with shrapnel and high explosive.
By the side of the road was a cottage, partly ruined, with the window-space boarded up: and, with some idea of seeking protection from the flying fragments, I leaned up against one of the walls.
I hadn't been there long when a face appeared at a gap in the boards, and a voice said: "Do yer fink y're safe there, mate, cos we're chock full o' bombs in 'ere."--_Edward Tracey, c/o Cowley Cottage, Cowley, Middlesex._
While on the Somme in 1916 my battery was sent to rest in a village behind the line. The billet allotted to us had been an hotel, and all the furniture, including bedsteads and feather mattresses, had been stored in the room which did duty as an orderly room.
Returning one day from exercise, we saw a flight of enemy 'planes coming over, and as we approached the billet a bomb was dropped straight through the roof of our building, the sole occupant of which at the time was a Cockney signaller on duty, in touch with Brigade Headquarters.
[Illustration: "They must 'ave 'it a blinkin' sparrer."]
We hurried forward, expecting to find that our signaller had been killed. The orderly room was a scene of indescribable chaos. Papers were everywhere. Files and returns were mixed up with "iron rations," while in a corner of the room was a pile of feathers about 4 feet deep--all that remained of the feather mattresses. Of our signaller there was no sign.
As we looked around, however, his head appeared from beneath the feather pile. His face was streaming with blood, and he looked more dead than alive, but as he surveyed his temporary resting-place, a grin spread over his features, and he picked up a handful of feathers.
"Blimey!" he observed, "they must 'ave 'it a blinkin' sparrer."--_"Gunner," Oxford Street, W.1._
At Neuve Eglise, March 1918, we were suddenly attacked by Jerry, but drove him back. Every now and again we spotted Germans dodging across a gap in a hedge. At once a competition started as to who could catch a German with a bullet as he ran across the gap.
"Reminds me of shooting at the bottles and fings at the fair," said my pal, another Cockney Highlander.