"To the German soldier war is a serious business. To the Frenchman it
is sublime devotion. To the Englishman it is bully sport."
This from Capt. Patrick Corcoran of the Royal Engineers, hero of a
dozen "Somewheres" in France, twice wounded and on permanent leave in
New York City.
"And to the Irishman?" I asked.
"Fighting always was the Irishman's great amusement," he said. "The
English are good sports, but they never did get the fun out of their
fun that the Irish do."
* * * * *
Fun in the trenches! With shells dropping all around and blowing the
bodies of your comrades into red fragments! What do the soldiers do, I
wondered, when this is happening?
The Frenchmen sing, this captain told me. Not to keep up their courage,
but joyously, exultantly.
"And the British?"
"Sure, they lay bets on what the next shell will do."
* * * * *
"The 'sausages' are the fine toys," the captain went on. "The Boche
call 'em minnewieffers, but they look like sausages. They always come
with a series of whoops, and you can tell almost exactly where they're
going to hit. Then they sit down and rest five seconds before they
explode; they muss things up a little sometimes, but they're decent
about it.
"But the whizz-bangs--nobody loves a whizz-bang. You can't even hear
them coming. You never have time to place a bet. They just whizz and
bang in the same breath; and if you happen to be conscious after that,
you help to bandage."
* * * * *
Capt. Corcoran enlisted as a private. I wondered how he came to get his
commission.
"So did I," he said. "I was carrying despatches to different places
within our sector; couldn't go to another sector without special
orders. But one day I was asked to take a despatch to another sector
and I took it. When I came back, they made me a lieutenant. Nothing at
all had happened, and I couldn't understand it. I didn't have any pull
that I knew of; and besides, pulls don't count nowadays.
"They told me a while later," he added, "that I was the seventh man
sent out with that despatch. The first six were killed."