FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  
the crosses fashioned from biscuit boxes. On the back of Anaytullah's cross was the wording in black: "Biscuits, 50 lbs." Thus the environment of the Keep: the enemy's trenches were about eight hundred yards away. No fighting took place here, the men's rifles stood loaded, but no shot was fired; only when the front line was broken, if that ever took place, would the defenders of the Keep come into play and hold the enemy back as long as that were possible. Then when they could no longer hold out, when the foe pressed in (p. 152) on all sides, there was something still to do, something vitally important which would cost the enemy many lives, and, if a miracle did not happen, something which would wipe out the defenders for ever. This was the Keep. The evening was very quiet; a few shells flew wide overhead, and now and again stray bullets pattered against the masonry. We cooked our food in the yard, and, sitting down amidst the flowers, we drank our tea and ate our bread and jam. The first flies were busy, they flew amidst the flower-beds and settled on our jam. Mervin told a story of a country where he had been in, and where the flies were legion and ate the eyes out of horses. The natives there wore corks hung by strings from their caps, and these kept the flies away. "How?" asked Bill. "The corks kept swinging backwards and forwards as the men walked," said Mervin. "Whenever a cork struck a fly it dashed the insect's brains out." "Blimey!" cried Bill, then asked, "What was the most wonderful thing you ever seen, Mervin?" "The most wonderful thing," repeated Mervin. "Oh, I'll tell you. It was the way they buried the dead out in Klondike. The snow lies (p. 153) there for six months and it's impossible to dig, so when a man died they sharpened his toes and drove him into the earth with a mallet." "I saw a more wonderful thing than that, and it was when we lay in the barn at Richebourg," said Bill, who was referring to a comfortless billet and a cold night which were ours a month earlier. "I woke up about midnight 'arf asleep. I 'ad my boots off and I couldn't 'ardly feel them I was so cold. 'Blimey!' I said, 'on goes my understandin's, and I 'ad a devil of a job lacing my boots up. When I thought I 'ad them on I could 'ear someone stirrin' on the left. It was my cotmate. 'Wot's yer gime?' he says. 'Wot gime?' I asks. 'Yer foolin' about with my tootsies,' he says. Then after a minute 'e shouts, 'Damn i
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Mervin

 

wonderful

 

amidst

 
Blimey
 
defenders
 

Klondike

 
Whenever
 

buried

 

months

 

impossible


foolin
 

minute

 

insect

 

dashed

 

brains

 
shouts
 

repeated

 

tootsies

 

struck

 
cotmate

stirrin

 
asleep
 

earlier

 

midnight

 

couldn

 

lacing

 

understandin

 
thought
 

walked

 

mallet


sharpened

 

comfortless

 

billet

 

referring

 

Richebourg

 

settled

 

longer

 

broken

 

pressed

 

miracle


important

 

vitally

 

wording

 

Biscuits

 

Anaytullah

 

crosses

 
fashioned
 

biscuit

 

fighting

 

rifles