Читать книгу 500 of the Best Cockney War Stories - Various - Страница 29

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Just before the battle of Messines we of the 23rd Londons were holding the Bluff sector to the right of Hill 60. "Stand down" was the order, and the sergeant was coming round with the rum.

"Nobbler," late of the Mile End Road, was watching him in joyful anticipation when … a whizz-bang burst on the parapet, hurling men in all directions. No one was hurt … but the precious rum jar was shattered.

"Nobbler," sitting up in the mud and moving his tin hat from his left eye the better to gaze upon the ruin, murmured bitterly: "Louvain—Rheims—the Lusitania—and now our perishin' rum issue. Jerry, you 'eathen, you gets worse and worse. But, my 'at, won't you cop it when 'Aig knows abaht this!"—E. H. Oliver, Lanark House, Woodstock, Oxford.