Читать книгу 500 of the Best Cockney War Stories - Various - Страница 11

Table of Contents

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.