The Martial Adventures of Henry and MeWhite, William Allen
History
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
White, William Allen
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
In another part of the field we saw the engineers learning to
make tunnels under the enemy; saw the engineers blowing up enemy
trenches--a pleasant and exciting spectacle; saw the engineers
making camouflage, and it may interest the gentle reader to know
that one of the niftiest bits of camouflage we saw was over a French
seventy-five gun. It was set in the field. A rail-road siding ran
to it. On a canvas over the gun two rails and the usual number of
ties were painted, and the track ran on beyond. Fifty feet in the
air one could not tell that the gun was there.
The liveliest part of this martial cloister was the section devoted
to the bayonet practice. And as we watched the men trying to rip
the vest buttons off a dummy and expose its gastric arrangements
with a bayonet, while loping along at full speed, we recalled a
Civil War story which may well be revived here. A Down-easter from
Vermont and a Southerner were going around and around one day at
Shiloh, each trying to get the other with the bayonet, but both
were good dodgers. Finally as the Yankee was getting winded he
cried between puffs:
"Watch aout--! Mind what yer dewin'! Ye dern smart aleck! Haint yew
got no sense! You'll stick the pint of thet thing in my boawels,
if you ain't keerful!"
We heard a lot of shivery stories around that training camp. They
told us that the French chasseurs, the famous blue devils, were
more or less careless about the way they forgot to take prisoners.
They are a proud people, from the French Alps, and exceedingly
democratic. A German brigadier, caught under their barrage, came
up to a troop of chasseurs and when they demanded his surrender
asked curtly, "Where's your superior officer?" They pointed down
the hill, and he started down. At a safe distance they threw a hand
grenade into him and obliterated him, remarking, "Well, the world
is that much safer for democracy." It is told of a Canadian who
came across a squad of Germans with their hands up that he asked:
"How many are you?" Eleven, they said. He reached in his pocket;
found his hand grenade, and threw it at them, remarking, "I'm sorry
I have but the one; but divide it between you!" There is also the
story of the Indian Sikhs, who begged to go out on a night raiding
party--crawling on their bellies with their knives as their only
weapons. Finally two of them returned with new pairs of boots.
Showing them proudly to their amazed Captain, they said humbly,
"Yes, sire! But you would be pained to learn how long we had to
hunt for a fit!" There is also the story of the festive Tommy who
tried to play a practical joke on his German prisoner by slipping
a lighted bomb in the German's pocket. The Tommy then started to
run; the German thought he must keep up with his captor and Tommy
realized that the joke was on him, just as the bomb went off and
killed them both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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