This is an extract from Patrick MacGill’s First World War memoir, The Red Horizon.
“… Oh! ‘ang it, Pat, they’re nothin’ to the French girls, them birds at ’ome.”
“What about that girl you knew at St. Albans?” I asked. “You remember how she slid down the banisters and made toffee.”
“She wasn’t no class, you know,” said Bill.
“She never answered the verse you sent from Givenchy, I suppose,” I remarked.
“It’s not that—-”
“Did she answer your letter saying she reciprocated your sentiments?” I asked.
“Reshiperate your grandmother, Pat!” roared Bill. “Nark that language, I say. Speak that I can understand you. Wait a minute till I reshiperate that,” he suddenly exclaimed pressing a charge into his rifle magazine and curving over the parapet. He sent five shots in the direction from which he supposed the sniper who had been potting at us all day, was firing. Then he returned to his argument.
“You’ve seen that bird at the farm in Mazingarbe?” he asked. Continue reading
