TOMMY AT HIS BEST

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 561, 22 February 1916, Page 2

TOMMY AT HIS BEST

THE SOUVENIR.

They were a carriagefui of " veterans," returning on short furlough from Flanders — the new kind of veterans, made by just 15 months**- of hard campaigning that had filled their lives without cessation since they had landed to the tune of ' Tipperary ' m August of last year (1914). Veterans, yet so close was their youth behind them that it would not be denied and bubbled out of them m strange contradiction of their war worn appearance. Stories of Mons, the Marne, and "Wipers" were incongruously interspersed with reminiscences of callow larks and ingenious anticipations of the times they were going to have during their short leave. First one and then another produced some treasured souvenir that he was carrying back — a helmit, a piece of i shell or shrapnel. They all displayed their trophies, excepting one somewhat ' older, hard-bitten man, who sat, a little aloof, taking no part m the loud talking and showing' but small interest. At last one of the men addressed him directly: "Wot 'aye you got?" " Nuthink," he replied shortly. "Wot! Not an 'elmit nor nuthink to giv yer gal?" ! "Ain't gort no gal." "Well, yer ole mother, then." " Ere! Never you mind abaht my ole mother, or you'll get a thick ear! mo lad!" "Ow! All right, 'Arry." i "And," fiercely, "my nime ain't 'Arry!" "Blimey! Marmajuke, then." A row seemed imminent, but peace I was restored on the understanding that ! " Ginger didn't mean no 'arm." ! " Funny your 'aving no souveneers," ventured one of the peace-makers ingratiatingly. " They ain't 'ard to find." "Ain't gort no use fer 'em. Mug's gime, I calls it, crawling abaht wiv shells and bullets dropping all arahnd yer, tryin' to find an *elmit. Fat lot of good an 'elmit u'd be to me if. me 'cad was blown orf gettin' it! Wot's the blinkin' good of an 'elmit if you've . gort no 'cad to put it on when yer showing it to people, eh?" " But if you was to come acrost one, m a wye o' speaking, I s'pose, nah, you'd pick it up?" " Ow, if it was to come into me 'and, as you might sye, I wouldn't mind, same as a souveneer wot I did 'appen to get. It's the only one I gort, and it was just shoved into me 'and wivaht looking fer it." "Was it, nah? And wot might it be?" They all became interested. " Ow, it ain't much." And he produced a small iron door-knocker from his pocket. "W'y, that's only a blinkin' knocker," said Ginger. " I s'pose yer pinched it off some old Frenchwoman's cottage door." "Well, if yer thinks that, yer a bit aht, then, Mister Body-snatcher. That there knocker 'as an 'istory, it 'as, Avot I'll tell yer abaht, if you blokes can keep that there Ginger's mahth shut before I 'as to close it permanent by knockin' his buck teeth dahn his perishin' throat!" tm The necessary guarantees •fl&eing given, he resumed. "This 'ere knocker 'as an 'istory, as I ses. One night — must 'a bin iawst December — I was m Wipers : a perishin' cruel night it was, # too. There was a bitin' wind and rain, and I was just abaht fed up wiv the 'ole job. I was goin' dahn one of them side streets, just orf the Clorth 'All — you know the plice as it was then — pore ole Wipers, ain't much left of it nah!" — there was a sympathetic murmer of assent. "Well, as I was sying, I was walkin' dahn this 'ere street, sloppin' an' 'obbling along them blinkin' cobbles m the dark, w'en I sees one of them French pubs, what they calls ' Eastaminets,' wiv a cosy light. Dim, o' corse, but warm-lookin' and snug, an' a bit of a sing-song comin' aht. Not 'xac'ly the sime as a Bermondsey pub of a Saturday night, but lively for that 'ole of a Wipers. ' Ere goes,' ses I, thinkin' of a few pints of that there French beer, wot is wet all right, but don't seem to touch the spot. 0' corse there wasn't no double swing doors, with ' Public Bar ' writ on them — just a plain door with this 'ere knocker. So I gives a knock, and. waits there m the drivin' rain. After a bit, seeing as no one come, I ups with the knocker again to give a fair oje belt wiv it, and " he paused while they all leant forward anxiously — "blimey! if a blinkin' Jack Johnson didn't blow the 'ole 'ouse out of me 'and!"