To pick up a good heavy stone and send
it _wallop_ right through the works of a piano is a great moment for
Tommy. I daresay there is something in it, you know.
These are roughish traits, are they not? Sit down by this group of
Tommies by the water-hole in the mid-day halt. They are filthy dirty,
poor fellows. Their thin, khaki, sweat-stained uniforms are rotting on
them. They have taken off tunics and shirts, and among the rags of
flannel are searching for the lice which pester and annoy them. Here is
a bit of raw humanity for you to study, a sample of the old Anglo-Saxon
breed; what do you make of it? Are thieving, and lying, and looting, and
bestial talk very bad things? If they are, Tommy is a bad man. But for
some reason or other, since I got to know him, I have thought rather
less of the iniquity of these things than I did before.
The day has been fearfully hot, as usual, and they have done a long
march. They were up last night on picket, and have had nothing to eat
all day as yet but a biscuit or two and a cup of milkless coffee. This
sort of thing has been going on for months. They are tired and hungry
and footsore. More than one falls back where he sits and drops into a
sleep of utter exhaustion. But of any serious grumbling or discontent
there is no sign. A few curse at the heat perhaps, but their hardships
are mostly a subject for rough chaff and Cockney jokes.
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