Let them!
So long as they refrain from practising direct hits on our front-line
parapet, and disturbing our brief and hardly-earned repose, they may
fire where they please. The ration train is well able to look after
itself.
"A whiff o' shrapnel will dae nae harrm to thae strawberry-jam
pinchers!" observes Private Tosh bitterly, rolling into his dug-out.
By this opprobrious term he designates that distinguished body of men,
the Army Service Corps. A prolonged diet of plum-and-apple jam has
implanted in the breasts of the men in the trenches certain dark
and unworthy suspicions concerning the entire altruism of those
responsible for the distribution of the Army's rations.
* * * * *
It is close on daybreak, and the customary whispered order runs down
the stertorous trench:--
"Stand to arms!"
Straightway the parapets are lined with armed men; the waterproof
sheets which have been protecting the machine-guns from the dews of
night are cast off; and we stand straining our eyes into the whitening
darkness.
This is the favourite hour for attack. At any moment the guns may open
fire upon our parapet, or a solid wall of grey-clad figures rise from
that strip of corn-land less than a hundred yards away, and descend
upon us. Well, we are ready for them. Just by way of signalising the
fact, there goes out a ragged volley of rifle fire, and a machine-gun
rips off half a dozen bursts into the standing corn.
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