When I opened your parcel we were banging away, and I thought how
different a place it was tied up in. The fags--what a treat!--the
chocolates, papers, and pipe. The last, by the way, is worth quids,
for the troops have just had an issue of tobacco, and not many pipes
are available; they get lost or broken. One thing we are short of, and
that is matches. We all mark time on someone lighting up, and there’s a
great rush on that one match: _A Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards_.
All’s Fair!
They say all is fair in love and war, but it’s awful to see those
deadly shells flying over our head and sometimes putting some of our
pals out of action. But, thank God, the wounded are picked up as soon
as possible, and treated with every care that both women and men nurses
can provide. In fact, I have seen men who have been badly wounded with
a smile on their faces as though nothing had happened, and even while I
am writing these few words under difficulty our boys are laughing and
joking and singing as if we were at a picnic, and I am sure they feel
quite as happy as if they were at one in reality: _Pte. B. Marshall,
1st Batt. Loyal North Lancashires_.
Unnerving!
Every soldier knows that the first experience of being under fire is
terribly unnerving, and the best of men will admit that at times they
are tempted to run away. There was a young lad of the Worcestershire
Regiment who had this feeling very badly, but he made up his mind that
he would conquer it, and this is what he did: he made it a practice
to go out of the trenches and expose himself to German fire for a bit
every day. The poor boy trembled like a leaf, but his soul was bigger
than the weak little body holding it, and he went through that terrible
ordeal for a week: _A Sergeant of the York and Lancaster Regiment_.