WAR HUMOR

Evening Star, Issue 16628, 10 January 1918, Page 6

WAR HUMOR

Heaven knows there is tragedy enough in this war. Yet if you keep your ears and eyes open you can find comedy in it, too. I was conducting a convoy up the line some time ago. At a forked road we met a convoy of a fighting unit coming back. As sometimes happens, their men began to chip our drivers : 1 ' Wot cher, Awmy Nervous Corpse ! Bin in the front trenches lately?’’ Our driver so addressed naturally became nasty. “ 'Oo yer callin’ ‘Nervous’ Corpse?” he shouted, fiercely. “ You ain't seen no rightin’!” “Ho! Ain’t I?” came the quick retort, “ Anywye, I was at Mnns !" “ Howe ! Was yer at Mons?’’ exclaimed the little Cockney. Then, with withering contempt: “ One of the blinkin’ aingils, I suppowse !” He didn’t say “ blinkin’,” but that is near enough. I remember once in France travelling by rail a distance of 65 miles in 17 hours. The, men became so bored that many got out and took long country walks, knowing that if the train started it would stop again in a few minutes. The weather was hot, and during one of these stoppages some of the men. seeing large tuba of water beside the track, stripped off their clothes, scrambled off tho train, and began to wallow in tho water. The train started. At that time it didn’t stop for two miles 1 Tours of inspection are sometimes fruitful of unintentional humor. A little while ago 1 hoard an inspecting officer ask one of the men if ho cleaned his teeth regularly. The reply came pat; “ No, sir.” “ And why not?” Here the sergeant cut in : “ Please, sir, he hasn't got no teeth.” On returning to camp ill a forest in Franco late one night, I almost stumbled over three men lying flat on their backs at the foot of a tree. The full moon shone down upon their faces, and I saw at' onco what was amiss. In that pine forest is a sanatorium for consumptives, as all the men knew. “ What are you men doing lying there?” I asked, sharply. One of the " victims,”, an old Irishman, made a ludicrous attempt to sit up. Then he put a finger to his lips, and, blinking up at me with a fatuous smile “ Husldi !" ho observed, unsteadily, in a thick whisper. “ Hushh ! Your honor—we are al shdiffering from cou-con-con-uhumption—shir.” Which, of course, was true. The quaintest experience 1 personally have hacf since the war started was when buying ingredients for the men’s Christmas puddings at a French base. When I asked in my best French for nutmeg, candied peel, • mixed spices, raisins, sultanas, currants, custard powder, and so on, the polite shop lady produced tinned peas, dried eels, a lobster in a bottle that reminde’d .me of things I have seen in hospital museums, and a box of nightlights. “ Perhaps this may help you, sir,” the company’s cook, who was with me, said suddenly. I opened the little ‘ Manual of the. French Tongue ’ which he had handed to me, but as it only explained that chon, genpu, caillou, 'joujou, hibou, and pou take an x in the plural, ako that “Once a lion met the washerwoman in the garden,” it was not of material assistance. “ Petits morceaux de peau de liraon,” I hazarded, meaning “little bits of lemon peel.” ; “ Limeades ! Ah, blen-1” And in a trice a pair of lemon solos were brought for my inspection. However, the men enjoyed their puddings—or said they did—and to this day that polite shop lady suffers from the hallucination that what she called our plat national' is a sort oi haggis, that it is boiled in a kettle, poured out of the spout, and eaten with a knife.—* Weekly Dispatch.’