099)
from the German trench mortars. This was the first we had seen; some
of our fellows have since been killed by them; and the blue-eyed
Jersey youth who was my friend at St. Albans, and who has been often
spoken of in my little volume _The Amateur Army_, came face to face
with one in the trenches one afternoon. It had just been flung in,
and, accompanied by a mate, my friend rounded a traverse in a deserted
trench and saw it lying peacefully on the floor.
"What is it?" he asked, coming to a halt.
"I don't know, it looks like a bomb!" was the sudden answering yell.
"Run."
A dug-out was near, and both shoved in, the Jersey boy last. But the
bomb was too quick for him. Half an hour later the stretcher-bearers
carried him out, wounded in seventeen places.
Stoner's breakfast was a grand success. The tea was admirable and the
bacon, fried in the mess-tin lids, was done to a turn. In the matter
of food we generally fare well, for our boys get a great amount of
eatables from home, also they have money to spend, and buy most of
their food whenever that is possible.
In the forenoon Pryor and I took up two earthen jars, a number of which
are supplied to the trenches, and went out with the intention of (p. 100)
getting water. We had a long distance to go, and part of the way we
had to move through the trenches, then we had to take the road
branching off to the rear. The journey was by no means a cheery one;
added to the sense of suffocation, which I find peculiar to the narrow
trench, were the eternal soldiers' graves.
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