When peace breaks out, and holidays to the scene
of the great war become fashionable, the woman of the _estaminet_ is
going to sell the percussion cap to the highest bidder. There are many
mementos of the great fight awaiting the tourists who come this way
with a long purse, "apres la guerre." At present a needy urchin will
sell the nose-cap of a shell, which has killed multitudes of men and
horses, for a few sous. Officers, going home on leave, deal largely
with needy French urchins who live near the firing line.
"A great gun, the one that sent that," said the Frenchman, digging the
clay from the eye of a potato and looking at the percussion-cap which
lay on the mantelpiece under a picture of the Virgin and Child. "But
compared with the 75, it is nothing; no good. The big shell comes
boom! It's in no hurry. You hear it and you're into your dug-out
before it arrives. It is like thunder, which you hear and you're in
shelter when the rain comes. But the 75, it is lightning. It comes
silently, it's quicker than its own sound."
"Do you work here?" asked Pryor. (p. 283)
"I work here," said the potato-peeler.
"In a coal-mine?"
"Not in a coal-mine," was the answer. "I peel potatoes."
"Always?"
"Sometimes," said the man. "I'm out from the trenches on leave for
seven days. First time since last August. Got back from Souchez
to-day."
"Oh!" I ejaculated.
"Oh!" said Pryor. "Seen some fighting?"
"Not much," said the man, "not too much.
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