A horrible wet night on the Locre-Dranoutre Road in 1914. A narrow
strip of pavé road and, on either side, mud of a real Flanders
consistency.
I was on my lawful occasions in a car, which was following a long
supply column of five-ton lorries.
[Illustration: "'Ere, ally off the perishin' pavé, you knight in
shinin' armour."]
I need scarcely say that the car did not try to forsake the comparative
security of the pavé, but when a check of about a quarter of an hour
occurred, I got down from the car and stumbled through the pouring
rain, well above the boot-tops in mud, to the head of the column.
Impasse barely describes the condition of things, for immediately
facing the leading lorry was a squadron of French Cuirassiers, complete
with "tin bellies" and helmets with horse-hair trimmings.
This squadron was in command of a very haughty French captain, who
seemed, in the light of the lorry's head-lamps, to have a bigger
cuirass and helmet than his men.
He was faced by a diminutive sergeant of the A.S.C., wet through, fed
up, but complete with cigarette.
Neither understood the other's language, but it was quite obvious that
neither would leave the pavé for the mud. Did the sergeant wring his
hands or say to the officer, "Mon Capitaine, je vous en prie, etc."? He
did not. He merely stood there, and, removing his cigarette from his
mouth, uttered these immortal words:
"'Ere, ally off the perishing pavé, you son of a knight in shinin'
armour!"
And, believe me or believe me not, that is what the haughty one and his
men did.--_"The Ancient Mariner," Sutton, Surrey._
"A Blinkin' Paper-Chase?"
One pitch black rainy night I was bringing up the rear of a party
engaged in carrying up the line a number of trench mortar bombs known
as "toffee-apples."
We had become badly tailed-off during our progress through a maze of
communication trenches knee-deep in mud, and as I staggered at last
into the support trench with my load I spied a solitary individual
standing on the fire-step gazing over the parapet.
"Seen any Queen's pass this way?" I inquired.
"Blimey," he replied, apparently fed-up with the constant repetition of
the same question, "wot 'ave you blokes got on to-night---a blinkin'
piper-chise?"--_W. H. Blakeman (late Sergt., Queen's R.W.S. Regt.), 22
Shorts Road, Carshalton._