Our company were holding the line, or what _was_ a line of trenches a
short time before, when Jerry opened out with all kinds of loudspeakers
and musical instruments that go to make war real.
We were knocked about and nearly blinded with smoke and flying
sandbags. The best we could do was to grope our way about with arms
outstretched to feel just where we were.
Eventually someone clutched me, saying, "Is that you, Charlie--are you
all right?"
"Yes, Jack," I answer, "are you all right?"
"Well, I don't know fer sure," he says as he dives his hand through
his tunic to his chest and holds on to me with the other. I had a soft
place in my heart for Jack, for nobody ever sent him a parcel, so what
was mine was Jack's. But not the piece of shrapnel that came out when
he withdrew his hand from inside his tunic!
"The only thing that ever I had sent me--and that from Jerry!" says
Jack. "We was always taught to love our enemies!"
They sure loved us, for shortly after I received my little gift of
love, which put me to by-by for several months. But that Cockney lad
from East London never grumbled at his hard lot. He looked at me,
his corporal, and no wonder he clung round my neck, for he has told
me since the war that he was only sixteen then. A brave lad!--_D. C.
Maskell (late 20th Battn. Middlesex Regt.), 25 Lindley Road, Leyton,
E.10_.