The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1919-03-07

could bloomin' well sit around doing
nothin'?'
"This was too much for me, that
blinkin' jellyish a singing mud at our
king, so / lost my temper, and taking
my glass OF vim rouge in my hand
/ leaned over close TO him and said:
when you mentions the kings name
ic Is customary to drink his health.
Perhaps he never did anything spe-
cial for me, but l have never done
anything special for him, and even
at that I've done a damned sight more
than you have for him, so take this
wine and drink his health, or I'll
dent that napper of yours SO you won't
be able to wear that tin hat Of yours
"He got kind of pale and answered:
Drink to the kings health; not likel
ly. It's through him and his bloody
Top Hats in parliament that I'm out
here. Why In the blinking hell don't
he do his own fighting and let us poor
blokes alone?'
81 saw red and was just goln' to hit
him, when a big Irishman out Of the
Royal Irish Rifles next to me grabs
the glass of wine from my hand, and
looking the bllghter in the face yells
at him:
"Well, If the king amt done moth
ing for you English, he's done less
tor us Irish, but / volunteered to come
out here for him, and here / am, and
glad Of 1t too, and hopes some day
to get into Berlin with the kings
forces. You won't drink his health /;
well you can battle his health With
that he threw the wine into the blight
er's face and smashed him In the nose
with his fist. The fellow went over
like q log with the Irishman still
agoin' for him. If we hadn't Of
pulled him off 1 think he would have
killed that conscientious objector. The
military police came in to see what
all the row was about. l had clicked
three days G. B. Confined to barracks)
and didn't want to get arrested, so In
the confusion I made tracks for my
billet.
"The next time I met the bloke was
| when we buried old Smith out of the
Tenth platoon in the cemetery at La
Bassee. He was one of the grave dig
gers. All during the burial service
he stood looking at the Union Jack
with a queer look on his face. When
old Smith was lowered into the ground
and the dirt was thrown on him the
conscientious Observation-Disclosures was
his name-came owe to me and said:
"I hear he (pointing at old Smiths
igrave) is forty-eight years old and has
left a wife and three nippers back in
Blighty. He was too old for the draft,
wasn't he? Then he must have VOL
unteered.'
81 answered: OF course he volun-
teered, and there he lies, deader than
h; but I'll wager a quid his wife
and kids will be proud of him-and
that's more than your kids will be
about you
"He sneaked off without answering.
Three days later / nearly dropped dead
when our lance corporal came into our
tillet with a bloody Isl and a beau
| tifully trimmed lamp. When I asked
him how he got knocked about he
| told me that a fellow out of the non
combatant corps named Watkins had
mussed him up just because he had
called him a white-livered coward.
watkins ducked twenty-one days
number one on the wheel, and when
his sentence was finished they trans
ferred him to a fighting unit, and
bang! into our platoon he comes.
MANY a talk I had with him about
that pacifst stuff-he hadn't changed
a bit in his ideas-but he kept his
mouth shut about the king and the
Top Hats at home.
"Then we went into the trenches
and I knew his finish was near. A
firing squad or rest in peace was to
be his lot; they all get one or the
other sooner or later.
"After two days in, Fritz got rough
and opened up with a pretty stiff bonn
bardment.
watkins was in the fourth squad
in a dugout in the support trench
when a Minnie registered a direct hit