RETURN TO WAR.

War Wit, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 July 1941, Page 10

RETURN TO WAR.

Nineteen hundred and seventeen, Victoria Station, London. Jumped into the train a minute before she left after fourteen days’ official, leave and four days’ unofficial. In the compartment there were eight Jocks, one Cockney, and myself. I decided the bottle of whisky I bought for the journey would meet a swift fate after glancing at their dials. Better leave it for the boat. But 18 days of whoopee had made my innards cry out for frequent oiling. When I surveyed them again they looked like camels on their eighth day. But the gnawing in my vitals was too fierce. ’ I yanked her out and croaked, “ Pass her round, boys!” I looked through the window but I couldn’t shut out the “ Glug, glug,” of lubricating throats. Cock-eyed Jock, beside me, grunted: “Drink yer sei’, Aussie!” They had left me a fair dinkum nip, too. The fat Jock said: “That was a guid drappie.” ' ; Then the party woke up. Cockeyed Jock brought to light a quart of Scotland’s best. And so did the fat Jock and the thin Jock, the fair, dark, and the red Jocks. And the Cockney donated- a bottle of Red Indian Rum, which tore down your gullet like a scalping knife and your intestines thought you were burning at the stake. I have no recollection of the Channel boat; rumours say that an Australian in a Glengary cap, led a charge up the gang plank. Dark Caledonian arrived by stretcher. He had hit the red bloke on the-boko and Red hit him in the whiskers. • ■

Cock-eyed Highlander woke me up to tell me how calm the Channel was. He was looking through the hut window on “ One Blanket Hill,” Boulogne. And the Cockney was stalking something in the corner and was peevish because we ? couldn’t see it and said we “ orter see a heye quack.”

Then he blew his Red Indian breath on me and I fainted for the first time in my life. * * *