"Well, to tell you the truth," he said, "I was 'oping I'd 'ave a bit of a change, don't you know, and a sort o' relief from Lizer's everlastin' tongue, but, strike me pink, if I wouldn't rather 'ave 'er dear old tongue than this--yes, even on a Saturday night, when I'd come 'ome drunk and me wages spent." A rather tough-looking nut who was listening to the dialogue chimed in contemptuously: "Huh, she jaws yer, does she? Wy that's nuffink. When I was a-leavin' of Sary Jane I was a-biddin' 'er good-bye, an' just to make a showin' I tries to kiss 'er, but, pepper me eye-balls, she lands me a swipe on the jawr an' sez, 'Kiss yer mother; if yer licks the Germans as bad as you've licked me, you won't be gone long.'" After the dissertations on married life by the happy benedicts, our suicidal friend of the East Lanks, who, reckless as ever, was still standing on the parados, which is the step in the rear side of the trench and, therefore, had three-quarters of his body exposed, suddenly yelled, "There's your Allemands;" our boys jumped to his side to see our friends on the other side of the street. Crack! and down fell the Tommy, and, a fraction of a second later, Slaughter, holding his hand to his jaw, slid forward slowly and convulsively into the trench. It was my first experience with the reality of war and my feeling was one of horror, then curiosity at what a stricken man looked like, then blind fury at everything German. The King's Own man was lying on his back with a hole through his cheek, the cheek-bone completely smashed. I hastened over to him, placed my overcoat under his head and started to bandage his face. He was badly hurt, but worth a dozen dead men, and was the recipient of hearty congratulations on his luck in getting such a Blighty (sufficiently wounded to take him home); it being evident that his wish to be home with his wife was soon to be realized. For quite a long time after I had a constant reminder of him and his wound in the blood-stained condition of my overcoat, which was soaked through at the time. My friend, Slaughter, was hit in the side of the neck, the bullet passing down his back and out of the loin. He had a narrow escape and it finished his active service there and then. I saw him later in England on military police duty and looking fine, but he will never again carry a pack. To illustrate the peculiar course a bullet will sometimes take, this will serve as an example. The King's Own man had his left arm extended pointing to the German lines and the bullet first passed through the sleeve of his coat, then through to his cheek, came out at his ear, passed over in an oblique direction, hitting Slaughter in the neck, passing out at his loin, then through two sandbags and embedded itself in a third. We dug it out and one of the boys kept it as a souvenir.