SHORT WAR STORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16026, 18 September 1915, Page 5 (Supplement)

SHORT WAR STORIES.

"HA, HA, AND HE, HE." " Aall's not reet in the army," said a Tyneside soldier to a friend the other day. " For instance, yesterday morning a swanky young officer came to me and said : ' Ha, ha, you've not been shaved this morning,' and Aa replied : ' He, he, Aa hevn't a razor.' And Aa got seven days c.b. for saying that." MADE A DIFFERENCE. "Hullo, Geordie," said Bill the other morning, " Aa see the Guworment wants some mair money te help te carry on the war." Aye," said Bill, an' weel they might." " Hoo's that?" asked Geordie. " Wey leuk whaat a happitite wqt Tom hes." said Bill. '' Aa telld wor Meg it wad mvek a bonny difference when he 'listed." NOT FOE HIS SAFETY. The awkward squad had been having a lecture in musketry. Just before they were dismissed the instructor asked one of them: " Why is the rifle placed in the hands of a soldier?" "To protect my life,"' came the prompt reply. The instructor glared at him. " Protect your life," he snorted. "Who's bothering about your life? The rifle, my lad, is placed in your hands for the destruction of the King's enemies." WOULD TAKE THEM FOR NOTHING. Lord Kitchener is so much regarded as a man without a smile (writes a correspondent of the Daily Chronicle) that an anecdote illustrating his human quality may be to the point. One of my officers has a rich father, who wrote directly to " K. of K." offering to settle £250 apiece on each of his two sons if the War Minister would give them commissions. " Settle the money on your daughters instead," came the reply; "if your sons are any good I will be glad to take them for nothing." Sound common sense this, 'at} well as humour touched with irony.

A SLIGHT ERROR. The following recruiting story told by an officer at Seaforth shows how prone is a simple mind to be confused by the elaborate cross-questioning which the new recruit has to undergo. The officer was entrusted with the collection of particulars necessary for the allotment of allowances to the soldiers' dependents. He was interrogating a young fellow who did not seem to have a clear idea what it was all about. "Next of kin?" he asked, in a sharp, business-like way. The young fellow dropped his voice and became confidentially apologetic. ' I'm only wearing a jersey," he replied, my shirt's getting washed." REVISED TO DATE. Gases to right of them, Gases to left of them, Gases in front of them. Chemic'ly thundered. Nix on the shot and shell, War has a newer hell— Into an acid bath, Into a poison smell. Rode the six hundred. —Tennyson in Flanders.

" KISMET."

Lord Kitchener tells a story of a sergeant of a company of British infantry quartered in a dacoit-infested district of Burma sonio years ago. The man was a firm believer in destiny, and one evening, when he was getting .ready to take a stroll outside the lines, he was seen to slip a revolver into his pocket. Another sergeant, who persistently opposed th? other's theory of everything being preordained and " fated,' promptly tackledhim. "Why are you taking that revolver with you?' 1 he asked jeeringly. "To shoot with," was the calm reply. " But if vonr time has come to die, you're always telling us nothing will save you,"'objected the other, "so what's the good of taking the revolver with you?" "Oh," replied the sergeant wisely, "but look how awkward it would be if I met a dacoit whose last day had come, according to destiny, aijd I had -nothing with which to shoot jiuflk"