“I wasn’t goin’ ter stand no bleed’n’ sarcasm!  An’ Fritz does the same to our blokes!  It’s ’e what started it!  We learnt it orf of ’im!”

“Yes, that’s what they all say.  It’s always the other man who’s done it first.  There’s been many a fellow who’s quite decent at heart who’s murdered a helpless prisoner thinking to avenge some abominable outrage that was never committed, but only dished up by some skunk of a pen-pusher who’s never seen any fighting in his life.  I don’t know much about Fritz, he may be worse than us or he may be better, but I’ve seen our fellows do some bloody awful things.  Anyhow, I know the German soldier’s doing his bit just as we are.  He thinks he’s in the right and we think we’re in the right, and he’s just as much entitled to his opinion as we are to ours.  And I tell you straight, if I had the choice between killing a German soldier and killing Lord Northcliffe, I’d shake hands with the German and ask him to help me kill Lord Northcliffe and a few others like him.  And I’m not the only one who’s that way of thinking, I can tell you.  We call ourselves sportsmen, but have we ever recognized that we got a brave enemy?  Say what you like about Fritz, he may be a brute, but he’s got some pluck—­he’s up against the world, he is.  He’ll be beaten in the end, that’s a cert, but he’s putting up a bloody hard fight.  I didn’t think much of him before I came out, but it’s hats off to him now!  But d’you think the civvies or the papers admit it?  No bloody fear!  The other day I saw a picture of the grenades we use—­I think it was in the Graphic or one of these illustrated rags.  It was headed, ‘Ferreting Fritz out of his Funk Holes.’  I know the man who wrote that hasn’t been in the trenches himself!  He’s never seen a lot of Germans lying dead round their machine-gun after fighting to the last, as I have!  He hasn’t even seen a shell burst, not he!  I bet he slipped into his funk hole, though, when there was an air-raid on!  Dirty, filthy swine!  When I was home on leave I got so wild at the way the civvies talked that I gave them a piece of my mind and told them a thing or two.  And one of them called me a pro-German!  He, of course, was a patriot.  He was making money out of the war and wanted a fight to a finish.  Well, I got my rag out properly and I caught him by the throat and shook him till he was blue in the face.  It was in the street too, and a lot of people standing about.  They didn’t say anything more after that, though!  I felt I’d done a good deed.  I was really glad to feel I’d clutched his windpipe with all my strength.  I expect he still wears the marks of my finger-nails, although it happened months ago....”

“’Ere, ’ere!  That’s the stuff to give ’em!  I reckon Fritz is a bloody good sport.  We ought ter shake ‘ands an’ make peace now.  Peace at any price, that’s what I say....  I tell yer a thing what ’appened when I was in the line.  We ‘ad a little dog wi’ us an’ one night she must ‘a’ strayed inter Fritz’s trenches.  The next mornin’ she came back wi’ a card tied round ‘er neck an’ on the card it ’ad:  ’To our comrades in misfortune—­What about Peace.’  I reckon that was a jolly decent thing ter say.  Jerry wants ter get ’ome to ‘is missis an’ kiddies just as much as what we do!”