fire; it was rather that of light-hearted first-nighters waiting in the
queue to witness some new and popular drama.

"A party of the King's Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal
Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way!
Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given
by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of
Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them
with the bayonet. When first the fierce German searchlights were turned
on the British lines a little cockney in the Middlesex Regiment
exclaimed to his comrade: "Lord, Bill, it's just like a play, an' us in
the limelight"; and as the artillery fusillade passed over their heads,
and a great ironical cheer rose from the British trenches, he added:
"But it's the Kaiser wot's gettin' the bird."

Many of the wounded who have been invalided home were asked whether this
humor in the trenches is the real thing, or only an affected drollery to
conceal the emotions the men feel in the face of death; but they all
declare that it is quite spontaneous. One old soldier, well accustomed
to being under fire, freely admitted that he had never been with such a
cheery and courageous lot of youngsters in his life. "They take
everything that comes to them as 'all in the game,'" he said, "and
nothing could now damp their spirits."

Songs, cards and jokes fill up the waiting hours in the trenches; under
fire, indeed, the wit seems to become sharpest. A corporal in the Motor
Cycle Section of the Royal Engineers writes: "At first the German
artillery was rotten. Three batteries bombarded an entrenched British
battalion for two hours and only seven men were killed. The noise was
simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted
with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give
the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery
is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires
stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as
Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily
asked to "take the blooming thing in again," and in so doing he was
wounded twice.

"The liveliest Sunday I ever spent" is how Private P. Case, Liverpool
Regiment, describes the fighting at Mons. "It was a glorious time,"
writes Bandsman Wall, Connaught Rangers; "we had nothing to do