The Gaelic spirit has not deserted Sergt. T. Cahill under fire. He
writes:
The Red Cross girleens with their purty faces and their sweet ways
are as good men as most of us, and better than some of us. They are
not supposed to venture into the firing line at all, but they get
there all the same, and devil a one of us durst turn them away.
Mike Clancy is that droll with his larking and bamboozling the
Germans that he makes us nearly split our sides laughing at him and
his ways.
Yesterday he got a stick and put a cap on it so that it peeped up
above the trench just like a man, and then the Germans kept shooting
away at it until they must have used up tons of ammunition.
But Mike Clancy was not the only practical joker in the trenches, as
the following from a wounded soldier shows:
Our men have just had their papers from home, and have noted, among
other things, that "Business as Usual" is the motto of patriotic
shopkeepers.
In last week's hard fighting the Wiltshires, holding an exposed
position, ran out of ammunition, and had to suspend firing until a
party brought fresh supplies across the open under a heavy fire.
Then the wag of the regiment, a Cockney, produced a biscuit tin with
"Business as Usual" crudely printed on it, and set it up before
the trenches as a hint to the Germans that the fight could now be
resumed on more equal terms.
Finally the tin had to be taken in because it was proving such a
good target for the German riflemen, but the joker was struck twice
in rescuing it.
A wounded private of the Buffs relates how an infantryman got
temporarily separated from his regiment at Mons, and lay concealed
in a trench while the Germans prowled around.
Just when he thought they had left him for good ten troopers left
their horses at a distance and came forward on foot to the trench.
The hidden infantryman waited until they were half way up the slope,
and then sprang out of his hiding place with a cry of "Now, lads,
give them hell!" Without waiting to see the "lads" the Germans took
to their heels.