Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/544
'Gas!' Gas!' when anyone else shouts 'Gas!' and so we now shout but we do so without prejudice and accepting no personal responsibility in the matter." And a private was heard to ask amidst all the bustle, "I say, Len, is it all correct about this gas they're talking of?" Of one thing I was persuaded as I set about waking up thoroughly; wherever I was and whoever I might be, the leading topic of the moment was undoubtedly gas. All else was a mêlée of men gagging themselves and each other with their hands and apparently working the bolts of their rifles in rapid fire with their feet.
Besides the personal precautions, there were also a hundred things to be done and a hundred men to do them. The darkness was no obstacle, efficiency was everywhere. In less than no time the man with the ammonia pump had sprayed the parapets and all things tangible with his powerful lotion, and had got upwards of a pint of it down the neck of his section commander, with whom, by a curious coincidence, he had not been on speaking terms during the previous day. Within about the same time our Company Sergeant-Major had "crimed" seven privates for breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, instead of breathing, as directed, in through the mouth and out through the nose. It is said that our Adjutant was overheard shouting thickly through his own apparatus, "Fix... respirators! One: one, two." I believe that one of the anti-gas-bomb party was so rapid in throwing the bombs out that his colleague and assistant had no time to find, much less fix, the fuses, and I can speak from bitter experience of the activity of the man with the flares, whose apparatus is locally known as the joy pistol. He operated so close to me on this occasion that I'll swear I felt one of those rowdy stars pass through one of my ears and out through the other. Only one man remained idle, our quaint sanitary man. Hanging at the Sergeant-Major's heels he kept imploring him, with pathetic insistence, "Wot bin I to do, Mister?"
The only other details calling for notice are the case of the excited corporal who found, after it was all over, that he had eaten the bulk of the medicated cotton-waste in his respirator; the "old soldier" who was caught sleeping light and spent the period of action searching for his boots; the curious invisibility of the gas; and the remarkable fact that the wind was in the wrong direction; and the unsatisfactory, if not criminal, conduct of the machine-gun officer, who informed all inquirers that he wasn't going to fire his old machine-gun until he saw something to fire at.
Charles, whatever the sceptics may say, it was a magnificent to-do and an overwhelming victory. Don't you believe anything to the contrary; for the ten who pooh-pooh the idea a hundred will confirm the fact of gas and will tell you exactly what it feels and tastes like. The further we get from the event the more precise the details of it become in the correspondence of my platoon. Men who were once sceptical themselves have since recalled elaborate and convincing details of black clouds and pungent smells. You must not share or even sympathise with the contempt of one incorrigible in my platoon who, as soon as the rapid fire ceased, was heard to call over the parapet in that peculiarly raucous and penetrating voice of his, "Put another shilling in the meter, Allemand!" If it is indeed admitted that that original sentry is notoriously imprudent in his consumption of the Tinned Meat and Vegetable Ration and had, that very evening, excelled all his own previous efforts with the rich gravy, what on earth, I ask you, can that have to do with it all? Yours ever, Henry.
Anxious Wife (watching her husband as he replaces dust-cap after cleaning new rifle). "That's right, dear. You'll always keep the stopper on when you're not using it, won't you? I'm so nervous about the children playing with it."