We had just gone into the front line. Two of us had not been there
before.
During a conversation with a Cockney comrade, an old hand, we told him
of our dislike of bombs. He tried to re-assure us something like this:
"Nah, don't let them worry you. You treat 'em just like blue-bottles,
only different. With a blue-bottle you watch where it settles an' 'it
it, but with bombs, you watch where they're goin' to settle and 'op it.
It's quite simple."
A short time after a small German bomb came over and knocked out our
adviser. My friend and I picked him up and tried to help him. He was
seriously hurt. As we lifted him up my friend said to him, "You didn't
get your blue-bottle that time, did you?" He smiled back as he replied:
"'Twasn't a blue-bottle, mate; must 'ave been a blinkin' wopse."--_C.
Booth, 5 Creighton Road, N.W.6._