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le,' 'Mucky Farm,' 'Lousy Wood,' and 'Martinpush.') "What were your prisoners like?" "'Alf clemmed," said the man from Manchester. "No rations for three days," explained a Northumberland Fusilier close by. One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still clasped to his bosom a German helmet. A British Tommy will cheerfully shed a limb or two in the execution of his duty, but not all the might and majesty of the Royal Army Medical Corps can force him to relinquish a fairly earned 'souvenir.' In fact, owing to certain unworthy suspicions as to the true significance of the initials, "R.A.M.C.," he has been known to refuse chloroform. "They couldn't get nothing up to them for four days, on account of our artillery fire," he added contentedly. "'Barrage,' my lad!" amended a rather superior person with a lance-corporal's stripe and a bandaged foot. Indeed, all are unanimous in affirming that our artillery preparation was a tremendous affair. Listen to this group of officers sunning themselves upon the upper deck. They are 'walking cases,' and must remain on board, with what patience they may, until all the'stretcher cases' have been evacuated. "Loos was child's play to it," says one--a member of a certain immortal, or at least irrepressible Division which has taken part in every outburst of international unpleasantness since the Marne. "The final hour was absolute pandemonium. And when our new trench-mortar batteries got to work too,--at sixteen to the dozen,--well, it was bad enough for _us_; but what it must have been like at the business end of things, Lord knows! For a few minutes I was almost a pro-Boche!" Other items of intelligence are gleaned. The weather was 'rotten': mud-caked garments corroborate this statement. The wire, on the whole, was well and truly cut to pieces everywhere; though there were spots at which the enemy contrived to repair it. Finally, ninety per cent. of the casualties during the assault were due to machine-gun fire. But the fact most clearly elicited by casual conversation is this--that the more closely you engage in a battle, the less you know about its progress. This ship is full of officers and men who were in the thick of things for perhaps forty-eight hours on end, but who are quite likely to be utterly ignorant of what was going on round the next traverse in the trench which they had occupied. The wounded Gunners are able to give them a good deal of inform
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