During the German attack near Zillebeke in June 1916 a diminutive
Cockney, named Samson, oddly enough, received a scalp wound from a
shell splinter which furrowed a neat path through his hair.
The fighting was rather hot at the time, and this great-hearted little
Londoner carried on with the good work.
Some hours later came the order to fall back, and as the Cockney was
making his way down the remains of a trench, dazed and staggering, a
harassed sergeant, himself nearly "all in," ordered him to bear off a
couple of rifles and a box of ammunition.
This was the last straw. "Strike, sergeant," he said, weakly, "I
can't 'elp me name being Samson, but I've just 'ad me perishin' 'air
cut!"--"_Townie," R.A.F._
"What's Bred in the Bone----!"
When we were at Railway Wood, Ypres Salient, in 1916, "Muddy Lane,"
our only communication trench from the front line to the support line,
had been reduced to shapelessness by innumerable "heavies." Progress
in either direction entailed exposure to snipers in at least twelve
different places, and runners and messengers were, as our sergeant put
it, "tickled all the way."
In the support line one afternoon, hearing the familiar "Crack! Crack!
Crack!" I went to Muddy Lane junction to await the advertised visitor.
He arrived--a wiry little Cockney Tommy, with his tin hat dented in two
places and blood trickling from a bullet graze on the cheek.
In appreciation of the risk he had run I remarked, "Jerry seems to be
watching that bit!"
"Watching!" he replied. "'Struth! I felt like I was walking darn
Sarthend Pier naked!"--_Vernon Sylvaine, late Somerset L.I., Grand
Theatre, Croydon._