"It was all right, sorr, and not so bad as I'd been after thinking, if
only my appetite had not been bigger than my belt, at all."
The spirit of these Irishmen was shown by some who had just come out
from the old country to join their comrades in the firing-line. When
the Germans put over a number of shells, smashing the trenches and
wounding men, the temper of the lads broke out, and they wanted to get
over the parapet and make a dash for the enemy. "'Twould taych him a
lesson," they told their officers, who had some trouble in restraining
them.
These newcomers had to take part in the digging which goes on behind
the lines at night--out in the open, without the shelter of a trench.
It was nervous work, especially when the German flares went up,
silhouetting their figures on the sky-line, and when one of the
enemy's machine-guns began to chatter. But the Irish boys found the
heart for a jest, and one of them, resting on his spade a moment,
stared over to the enemy's lines and said, "May the old devil take the
spalpeen who works that typewriter!"
It was a scaring, nerve-racking time for those who had come fresh to
the trenches, some of those boys who had not guessed the realities of
war until then.
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