There’s a corporal of a regiment that I won’t name who was a ticket-collector on the railway before the war, and when he was called back to the colours he wasn’t able to forget his old trade. One day he was in charge of a patrol that surprised a party of Germans in a wood, and, instead of a usual call to surrender, he sang out, “Tickets, please!” The Germans seemed to understand what he was driving at, for they surrendered at once, but that chap will never hear the end of the story, for when everything else ceases to amuse in the trenches, you have only to shout out, “Tickets, please!” to set everybody in fits: _A Gunner of the Royal Artillery_. No Uhlans Need Apply! We were about as hungry as men could be when we came on a party of Uhlans just about to sit down to a nice dinner which had been prepared for them at a big house. They looked as if they had had too much of a good time lately and wanted thinning down; so we took them prisoners, and let them watch us enjoying their dinner. They didn’t like it at all, and one of them muttered something about an English pig. The baby of the troop asked him to come outside to settle it with fists, but he wasn’t having it. After the best dinner I’ve had in my life we went round to where the Uhlans had commandeered the supplies and offered to pay, but the people were so pleased that we had got the food instead of the Germans that they wouldn’t hear of payment: _Trooper Dale, Royal Dragoons_. Cooking Their Dinner Have you ever tried cooking a dinner under shell fire? It’s about as exciting as anything you could have in this world. Yesterday we were in the firing line, and as there were no prospects of relief, we had to make a spit and roast some fowls we had been given by the villagers. Just when they were doing nicely, and we were going around to turn them, the Germans found the range, and shells began to drop all around. We had to lie low, and when there was a lull one of us would rush out and turn the nearest bird, and then run back again under cover. We got them cooked all right, but two of our chaps were killed outright and four injured. That’s a big bill to pay for a dinner; but soldiers are like beggars, they can’t be choosers. Out here is no place for the faint-hearts, and we want only real men, who are afraid of nothing: _Pte. T. Bayley, 5th Irish Lancers_. Business as Usual