My police court friends with the colours (1915)

[Skipman]

Here's a very interesting book I stumbled upon.

My police court friends with the colours (1915)

Still later, he says : " Gas we've given 'em gas ! We were bringing in a lot of prisoners we'd taken, when they tried to rush us, thinking we were all poisoned. We'd left many a hundred of 'em dead, on the ground and in the trenches, and we were bringing this lot past where some of our poor fellows lay struggling for breath such a sight as you never saw. It fairly went to one's heart. I cried like a child to see how they suffered. And if two of the spawn of hell we'd got didn't point at 'em gasping there, and laugh fit to split their sides, and say, in good English, mind, 'What you think of that?' as well as they could for laughing. I fetched both of 'em a sandcrack with the butt - end of my rifle on their skulls, and they laughed then on the other side of their faces. We had to carry 'em after that, and the doctors had a bit of extra trouble bringing 'em round. The major told me I didn't ought to have done it, and I suppose I didn't, for the doctors have enough to do without bothering with them beasts. If I see ought like that again, though, I shall be at 'em just the same, for I can't bear such goings on. Only I must try to manage so as no doctor will be bothered with 'em next time. Not that the gas is going to do 'em any good in the lung - run ; we want more shells and more men. Nobody need be downhearted. It's a certainty that we're going to Berlin. I'll bring you a bit of a keepsake from there. You can depend on that, sir. For you're the best friend I've ever found."

Mike