There was a shell which lighted on a field kitchen while the master cook was stirring the dinner. It was a near shave for him, but, as he did escape, you mostly recall his rueful appearance as he gathered himself out of the scattered soup. Another of our vignettes is of some cows getting into the battle arena, and of half a dozen infantrymen calmly milking them. “Early doors this way; early doors, ninepence!” you once cried for slogan in a hard charge. When the German searchlights fell on you for the first time, your comment was, “Why, Bill, it’s just like a play and us in the limelight.” It was the Irish element in you which shouted, “Look at thim divils retraitin’ with their backs facin’ us,” adding, about a lucky shamrock supposed to have been given to the Kaiser by somebody, “Sure, Hinissey, and there’ll be a leaf apiece for us when we get to Berlin.” Your philosophy, Private Atkins, cannot be upset even when a shrapnel bullet knocks a few inches out of your arm. No; your lament is that it carries away a tattooed butterfly of which you were very proud. You date your letters from the “Hotel de la Openaires, Rue de Grassies, bed most comfortable and all arrangements up-to-date.” You have your little joke all the time, and so when you meet the Foot Guards on a Sunday you ask them which band is playing in the Park? Now and then the joke is against you, but you only enjoy it all the more, which is the final testimony that you are a true humorist. Perhaps if the joke singles out overmuch you go “all the colours of the rainbow,” a lovable thing, because it reveals your modesty. Otherwise you always are in your element, be the field tented white or stricken red. You are the complete knight in khaki, self-respecting, proud of your regiment, a lion-rampant of bravery and resolution, tender-hearted for all suffering; and we shall not forget your simple request, “Think kind of a soldier!” How could we when we know that you have a greater song than “Tipperary,” although you only sing it silently to yourselves in the dark watches of the night: “_A little I’m hurt, but not yet slain; I’ll but lie down and bleed awhile And then I’ll rise and fight again._” JAMES MILNE THE WAR STORIES OF PRIVATE THOMAS ATKINS I. MARCHING TO WAR _Fair stood the wind for France When we our sails advance._ MICHAEL DRAYTON. _Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife, To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name._ SIR WALTER SCOTT. One pretty French girl had learned only one English phrase, “Kiss me quick.” I don’t know who taught her, but when she walked up the lines repeating it she soon found out its significance: _Truthful Thomas Atkins_. Keepsakes