There are many bright lines in the soldiers’ letters home, as Punch and other papers note.
“A clergyman recently gave a lecture on ‘Fools’ at the ‘hut’ back of our station,” writes a boy from the Somme. “The tickets of admission were inscribed, ‘Lecture on Fools. Admit one.’ There was a large audience.”
And from Calais comes this:
“You will note with interest and tell the shirkers they’re missing something here. The ‘G’ came off the big sign east of the station here and we now read: ‘The only English love makers in the city.’”
ONE OF THOSE IRISH BULLS
The recruit from Ireland spent his leave in England. Asked on his return to the front what he thought of the place, he said:
“Faith, London is a great city; but it’s no place for a poor man unless he has plenty of money.”
WHEN GERMANY SALUTED A PIG
A Belgian farmer saved his bacon in an unusual way. He heard that the Germans were coming, so he killed and dressed his one pig, cleaned it, put it into his bed with only a part of the underface exposed, and put a lighted candle at each side of the bed. When the Germans arrived an officer entered the house, went into the room, saw what he believed to be a member of the family laid out for burial, saluted and went out!
AND SO IT PROVED
Arthur Train, the novelist, put down a German newspaper at the Century Club, in New York, with an impatient grunt.
“It says here,” he explained, “that it is Germany who will speak the last word in this war.”
Then the novelist laughed angrily and added:
“Yes, Germany will speak the last word in the war, and that last word will be ‘Kamerad!’”
WASHINGTON GETS THESE, TOO
They have some exceptional letters in the London “Family Separation” office, which looks after the families of soldiers at the front. These are all actual letters received:
“Dear Sir – You have changed my little boy into a little girl. Will it make any difference?
“My Bill has been put in charge of a spittoon. Will I get more pay?” [“Platoon” was meant.]
“I am glad to tell you that my husband has been reported dead.”
“If I don’t get my husband’s money soon I shall be compelled to go on the streets and lead an Imortal life.”
“Dear Sir – In accordance with instructions on paper, I have given birth to a daughter last week.
BLACK MAGIC
“Yes, sah,” said one negro, “a friend of mine who knows all about it says dis heah man Edison has done gone and invented a magnetized bullet dat can’t miss a German, kase ef dere’s one in a hundred yards de bullet is drawn right smack against his steel helmet. Yes, sah, an’ he’s done invented another one with a return attachment. Whenever dat bullet don’t hit nothin’ it comes right straight back to de American lines.”
“Dat’s what I call inventin’,” exclaimed his colored listener. “But how about dem comin’-back bullets? What do dey do to keep ’em from hittin’ ouah men when dey come back?”
“Well, Mr. Edison made ’em so he’s got ’em trained. You don’t s’pose he’d let ’em kill any Americans, do you? No, sah. He’s got ’em fixet so’s dey jes’ ease back down aroun’ de gunner’s feet an’ sort o’ say: ‘Dey’s all dead in dat trench, boss. Send me to a live place where I’se got a chancet to do somethin’.’”
SUCH EXCUSES AS THEY MAKE
A soldier was brought up for stealing his trench bunkie’s liquor.
“I’m sorry, sor,” he said. “But I put the liquor for the two of us in the same bottle. Mine was at the bottom, an’ I was obliged to drink his to get mine.”
HE HAD TROUBLES, TOO
At a church adjacent to a big military camp a service was recently held for soldiers only.
“Let all you brave fellows who have troubles stand up,” shouted the preacher.
Instantly every man rose except one.
“Ah!” exclaimed the preacher, peering at this lone individual. “You are one in a thousand.”
“It ain’t that,” piped back the only man who had remained seated, as the rest of his comrades gazed suspiciously at him. “Somebody’s put some cobbler’s wax on the seat, and I’m stuck.”
WHAT COULD HE MEAN?
An army chaplain was trudging along a hot, dusty road with a company of soldiers. As they stopped to rest and to get a drink of water at a farm house the farmer’s wife said to the chaplain:
“You go everywhere the soldiers go, I suppose?”
“No, ma’am,” answered the preacher, “not everywhere; only in this world.”
NEVER MIND THE TARGET
The subject of rifle shooting often crops up at one of the training camps.
“I’ll bet anyone here a box of cigars,” said Lieut. A., “that I can fire twenty-one shots at 200 yards and tell without waiting for the marker the result of each one correctly.”
“Done!” cried Maj. B. And the whole mess turned out early the next morning to witness the experiment.
The lieutenant fired.
“Miss!” he announced calmly.
Another shot.
“Miss!” he repeated.
A third shot.
“Miss!”
“Here, hold on!” put in Maj. B. “What are you trying to do? You’re not firing for the target!”
“Of course not!” was the cool response. “I’m firing for those cigars!”
A LADY FROM HELL
Two “kilties” from the same town met in a rest camp “somewhere in France” and started exchanging confidences.
“Whit like a sendoff did yer wuman gie ye, Sandy, when ye left for France?” asked Jock presently.
Sandy lit a fresh cigaret before he replied frankly:
“Says she, ‘Noo, there’s yer train, Sandy; in ye get, an’ see an’ do yer duty. By jingo, ma mannie, if I thocht ye wed shirk it oot yonder I wud see ye was wounded afore ye gang off.’ That’s the sendoff she gaed me, Jock.”
THEORY VS. FACT
United States Senator Howard Sutherland, of West Virginia, tells a story about a mountain youth who visited a recruiting office in the Senator’s State for the purpose of enlisting in the regular army. The examining physician found the young man as sound as a dollar, but that he had flat feet.
“I’m sorry,” said the physician, “but I’ll have to turn you down. You’ve got flat feet.”
The mountaineer looked sorrowful. “No way for me to git in it, then?” he inquired.
“I guess not. With those flat feet of yours you wouldn’t be able to march even five miles.”
The youth from the mountains studied a moment. Finally he said: “I’ll tell you why I hate this so darned bad. You see, I walked nigh on to one hundred and fifty miles over the mountains to git here, and