Usually there is something going on, but there are days when a man would not think there was a war at all.  It is not every day at the front that both sides are shelling and strafing.  We once faced a certain Saxon regiment and for nearly two weeks neither side fired a bullet.  This particular Saxon regiment said to us:  “We are Saxons, you are Anglo-Saxons, we are not a bit fussy about shooting as long as you won’t.”  So, as our turns came periodically, we faced them and did not shoot.

Actually we sent out working parties in the daytime, both Saxon and British, but such things do not happen any more.  And such a situation never yet happened with a Prussian or Bavarian regiment.  Those devils like to shoot for the sake of hearing their rifles go off.

There are days, when fighting at close quarters, that both sides feel pretty good.  The morning will be bright, and we may open the proceedings by trying to sing German songs, and they will join in by singing British airs, but always in a sarcastic manner, after putting words to them that I dare not write.

On the first day of July, which is Dominion or Confederation Day, the Germans began by singing to a certain Eastern Canadian regiment the first verse of our national anthem, O!  Canada.  When they got through, they politely asked the young braves of this regiment to sing the second verse.  The Canadian boys sent over a few bombs instead, for they did not know the words of the second verse!  Not to know the second verse seems to be one of the idiosyncrasies of the peoples of all nations, bar the German!

Should we get tired of singing, we would shout across to the enemy trenches.  We would ask pertinent questions about their commanders and impertinent ones about the affairs of their nation.  One thing I can say for Hans—­he is never slow in answering.  His repartee may be clumsy, but it is prompt and usually effective.

We would inquire after the health of old “Von Woodenburg,” old “One O’clock,” the “Clown Prince,” or “One Bumstuff.”  Hans would take this in a jocular way, slamming back something about Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Lloyd George, or Sir Sham Shoes, but when we really wanted to get Fritz’s goat we would tease him about the Kaiser.

We would shout “Gott strafe der Kaiser!” That would put them up in the air higher than a balloon.  We would feel like getting out and hitting one another, but we dare not even raise a finger because a sniper would take it off.  But after a lull there is always a storm, so before many minutes a bullet would go “crack,” which would be the signal for thousands of rifles on both sides to commence an incessant firing.  All this over nothing, and nobody getting hurt.

It put me in mind of a couple of old women scrapping over a back-yard fence, and as we say back home, “all fussed up and no place to go.”

CHAPTER X