What
mattered was the enormous whimsicality of the Bombardier at the piano,
and the outrageous comicality of a tousle-haired soldier with a red
nose, who described how he had run away from Mons "with the rest of
you," and the light--heartedness of a performance which could have
gone straight to a London music-hall and brought down the house with
jokes and songs made up in dugouts and front--line trenches.
At first the audience sat silent, with glazed eyes. It was difficult
to get a laugh out of them. The mud of the trenches was still on them.
They stank of the trenches, and the stench was in their souls.
Presently they began to brighten up. Life came back into their eyes.
They laughed! . . . Later, from this audience of soldiers there were
yells of laughter, though the effect of shells arriving at unexpected
moments, in untoward circumstances, was a favorite theme of the
jesters. Many of the men were going into the trenches that night
again, and there would be no fun in the noise of the shells, but they
went more gaily and with stronger hearts, I am sure, because of the
laughter which had roared through the old sugar--factory.
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