So then Alcock cut in and says "Yes but you will notice they don't come
from different places at once and the bird that throws them gos from 1
place to another so as we will think the trenchs is full of Germans." So
Simon says "They couldn't nobody go from 1 place to another place as fast
as them flares shoots up from different places." So Alcock says "No they
couldn't nobody do it if they walked but the man that throws them flares
don't walk because he hasn't got only 1 leg as his other leg was shot off
early in the war. But Van Hindenburg is so hard up for men that even if you
get a leg shot off as soon as the Dr. mops up the mess and sticks on the
court plaster they send the bird back in the war and put him on a job where
you don't half to walk. So they stuck this old guy in the motorcycle dept.
and now all as he does is ride up and down some quite section like this
here all night and stop every so often and throw up a flare to make us
think the place is dirty with Germans."
Well Al Simon thought it over a wile and then asked Alcock how a man could
ride a motorcycle with only 1 leg and Alcock says "Why not because you
don't half to peddle a motorcycle as they run themself." So Simon says yes
but how about it when you want to get off? So Alcock says "What has a man's
legs got to do with him getting off of a motorcycle as long as you have got
your head to light on?"
That is what they handed him Al and they hadn't hardly no sooner then got
through with that dose when Brady begun on the souvenirs. First he asked
him if he had got a hold of any new ones lately and Simon says no he hadn't
seen nobody that had any for sale and besides his jack was low so Brady
asked him how much did he have and he says about 4 franks. So Brady says
"Well you can't expect anybody to come across with anything first class for
no such chicken's food as that." So Simon says well even if he had a pocket
full of jack he couldn't buy nothing with it when they wasn't nothing to
buy. Then Brady asked him if he had saw the German speegle Ted Phillips had
picked up and Simon says no so Brady went and got Phillips and after a wile
he come back with him and Phillips said he had the speegle in his pocket
and he would show it to us if we promised to be carefull and not jar it out
of his hands wile he was showing it as he wouldn't have it broke for the
world. So Simon stood there with his eyes popping out and Phillips pulled
the speegle out of his pocket and it wasn't nothing only a dirty little
looking glass that you could pretty near crall through the cracks in it
and all the boys remarked what a odd little speegle it was and they hadn't
never saw 1 like it before and etc. and finely Simon couldn't keep his clam
shut no longer so he asked Phillips how much he would take for it. Well
Phillips says it wasn't for sale as speegles was scarce in Germany on acct.
of the war and that was why the Dutchmens always looked like a bum when
you took them a prisoner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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