Читать книгу 500 of the Best Cockney War Stories - Various - Страница 24

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One night, while going round the line at Loos, I was accompanied by Sergeant Winslow, who was a London coster before the war.

We were examining the field of fire of a Lewis gun, when the Germans opened up properly on our sector. Clouds of smoke rose from the surrounding trenches, crash after crash echoed around the old Loos crassier, and night was turned into day by Verey lights sent up by both sides.

Suddenly a lad of 18, just out, turned to Sergeant Winslow, and in a quivering voice said: "My God, sergeant, this is awful!"

Sergeant Winslow replied: "Now, look 'ere, me lad, you'd have paid 'alf a dollar to take your best gal to see this at the Crystal Palace before the war. What are yer grousing abaht?"—A. E. Grant (late 17th Welch Regt.), 174 Broom Road, Teddington.