Presently he had the pleasure of expressing his
mind more freely to a French signaler of artillery who was on duty at
an observing post in this forward fire trench. The Frenchman had a
sufficient smattering of English to ask awkward questions as to why men
were allowed to strike in England in war time, but unfortunately not
enough to follow Robinson's lengthy and agonized explanations that
these men were not English but--a very different thing--Welsh, and,
more than that, unpatriotic swine, who ought to be shot. He was reduced
at last to turning the unpleasant subject aside by asking what the
Frenchman was doing there now the British had taken over. And presently
the matter was shelved by a French observing officer, who was on duty
there, calling his signalers to attention. The German guns had opened a
slow and casual fire about half an hour before on the forward British
trench, and now they quickened their fire and commenced methodically to
bombard the trench. At his captain's order a signaler called up a
battery by telephone. The telephone instrument was in a tall narrow box
with a handle at the side, and the signaler ground the handle
vigorously for a minute and shouted a long string of hello's into the
instrument, rapidly twirled the handle again and shouted, twirled and
shouted.
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