'The troops continue in excellent spirits.'—EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH.

To appreciate properly, from the Army's point of view, the humour of this story, it must always be remembered that the regiment concerned is an English one—entirely and emphatically English, and indeed almost entirely East End Cockney.

It is true that the British Army on active service has a sense of humour peculiarly its own, and respectable civilians have been known, when jests were retailed with the greatest gusto by soldier raconteurs, to shudder and fail utterly to understand that there could be any humour in a tale so mixed up with the grim and ghastly business of killing and being killed.

A biggish battle had died out about a week before in the series of spasmodic struggles of diminishing fury that have characterised most of the battles on the Western Front, when the Tower Bridge Foot found themselves in occupation of a portion of the forward line which was only separated from the German trench by a distance varying from forty to one hundred yards. Such close proximity usually results in an interchange of compliments between the two sides, either by speech, or by medium of a board with messages written on it—the board being reserved usually for the strokes of wit most likely to sting, and therefore best worth conveying to the greatest possible number of the enemy.

The 'Towers' were hardly installed in their new position when a voice came from the German parapet, 'Hello, Tower Bridge Foot! Pleased to meet you again.'

The Englishmen were too accustomed to it to be surprised by this uncannily prompt recognition by the enemy of a newly relieving regiment of which they had not seen so much as a cap top.

'Hullo, Boshy,' retorted one of the Towers. 'You're makin' a mistake this time. We ain't the Tower Bridges. We're the Kamchatka 'Ighlanders.'

'An' you're a liar if you says you're pleased to meet us again,' put in another. 'If you've met us afore I lay you was too dash sorry for it to want to meet us again.'

'Oh, we know who you are all right,' replied the voice. 'And we know you've just relieved the Fifth Blankshires; and what's more, we know who's going to relieve you, and when.'

''E knows a bloomin' heap,' said a Tower Bridge private disgustedly; 'an' wot's more, I believe 'e does know it.' Then, raising his voice, he asked, 'Do you know when we're comin' to take some more of them trenches o' yours?'

This was felt by the listening Towers to be a master-stroke, remembering that the British had taken and held several trenches a week before, but the reply rather took the wind out of their sails.

'You can't take any more,' said the voice. 'You haven't shells enough for another attack. You had to stop the last one because your guns were running short.'

'Any'ow,' replied an English corporal who had been handing round half a dozen grenades, 'we ain't anyways short o' bombs. 'Ave a few to be goin' on with,' and he and his party let fly. They listened with satisfaction to the bursts, and through their trench periscopes watched the smoke and dust clouds billowing from the trench opposite.

'An' this,' remarked a Tower private, 'is about our cue to exit, the stage bein' required for a scene-shift by some Bosh bombs,' and he disappeared, crawling into a dug-out. During the next ten minutes a couple of dozen bombs came over and burst in and about the British trench and scored three casualties, 'slightly wounded.'

'Hi there! Where's that Soho barber's assistant that thinks 'e can talk Henglish?' demanded the Towers' spokesman cheerfully.

That annoyed the English-speaking German, as of course incidentally it was meant to do.

'I'm here, Private Petticoat Lane,' retorted the voice, 'and if I couldn't speak better English than you I'd be shaming Soho.'

'You're doing that anyway, you bloomin' renegade dog-stealer,' called back the private. 'Wy didn't you pay your landlady in Lunnon for the lodgin's you owed when you run away?'

'Schweinhund!' said the voice angrily, and a bullet slapped into the parapet in front of the taunting private.

'Corp'ril,' said that artist in invective softly, 'if you'll go down the trench a bit or up top o' that old barn behind I'll get this bloomin' Soho waiter mad enough to keep on shootin' at me, an' you'll p'raps get a chance to snipe 'im.'

The corporal sought an officer's permission and later a precarious perch on the broken roof of the barn, while Private Robinson extended himself in the manufacture of annoying remarks.

'That last 'un was a fair draw, Smithy,' he exulted to a fellow private. 'I'll bet 'e shot the moon, did a bolt for it, when 'e mobilised.'

'Like enough,' agreed Smithy. 'Go on, ol' man. Give 'im some more jaw.'

'I s'pose you left without payin' your washin' bill either, didn't you, sower-krowt,' demanded Private Robinson. There was no reply from the opposition.

'I expeck you ler' a lot o' little unpaid bills, didn't you?—if you was able to find anyone to give you tick.'

'I'll pay them—when we take London,' said the voice.

'That don't give your pore ol' landlady much 'ope,' said Robinson. 'Take Lunnon! Blimy, you're more like to take root in them trenches o' yours—unless we comes over again an' chases you out.'

Again there was no reply. Private Robinson shook his head. ''E's as 'ard to draw as the pay that's owin' to me,' he said. 'You 'ave a go, Smithy.'

Smithy, a believer in the retort direct and no trafficker in the finer shades of sarcasm, cleared his throat and lifted up his voice. ''Ere, why don't you speak when you're spoke to, you lop-eared lager-beer barrel, you. Take your fice out o' that 'orse-flesh cat's-meat sossidge an' speak up, you baby-butcherin' hen-roost robber.'

'That ain't no good, Smithy,' Private Robinson pointed out. 'Y'see, callin' 'im 'ard names only makes 'im think 'e's got you angry like—that 'e's drawed you.'

(Another voice called something in German.)

'Just tell them other monkeys to stop their chatter, Soho,' he called out, 'an' get back in their cage. If they want to talk to gen'l'men they must talk English.'

'I like your d—d impertinence,' said the voice scornfully. 'We'll make you learn German, though, when we've taken England.'

'Oh, it's Englan' you're takin' now,' said Private Robinson. 'But all you'll ever take of Englan' will be same as you took before—a tuppenny tip if you serves the soup up nice, or a penny tip if you gives an Englishman a proper clean shave.'

The rifle opposite banged again and the bullet slapped into the top of the parapet. 'That drawed 'im again,' chuckled Private Robinson, 'but I wonder why the corp'ril didn't get a whack at 'im.'

He pulled away a small sandbag that blocked a loophole, and, holding his rifle by the butt at arm-length, poked the muzzle out slowly. A moment later two reports rang out—one from in front and one behind.

'I got 'im,' said the corporal three minutes later. 'One bloke was looking with a periscope and I saw a little cap an' one eye come over the parapet. By the way 'is 'ands jerked up an' 'is 'ead jerked back when I fired, I fancy 'e copped it right enough.'

Private Robinson got to work with a piece of chalk on a board and hoisted over the parapet a notice, 'R.I.P. 1 Boshe, late lamented Soho garÇon.'

'Pity I dunno the German for "late lamented," but they've always plenty that knows English enough to unnerstand,' he commented.

He spent the next ten minutes ragging the Germans, directing his most brilliant efforts of sarcasm against made-in-Germany English-speakers generally and Soho waiters in particular; and he took the fact there was no reply from the voice as highly satisfactory evidence that it had been the 'Soho waiter' who had 'copped it.'

'Exit the waiter—curtain, an' soft music!' remarked a private known as 'Enery Irving throughout the battalion, and whistled a stave of 'We shall meet, but we shall miss him.'

'Come on, 'Enery, give us 'is dyin' speech,' some one urged, and 'Enery proceeded to recite an impromptu 'Dyin' Speech of the Dachshund-stealer,' as he called it, in the most approved fashion of the East End drama, with all the accompaniments of rolling eyes, breast-clutchings, and gasping pauses.

'Now then, where's the orchestra?' he demanded when the applause had subsided, and the orchestra, one mouth-organ strong, promptly struck up a lilting music-hall ditty. From that he slid into 'My Little Grey Home,' with a very liberal measure of time to the long-drawn notes especially. The song was caught up and ran down the trench in full chorus. When it finished the orchestra was just on the point of starting another tune, when 'Enery held up his hand.

'"'E goes on Sunday to the church, an' sits among the choir."' he quoted solemnly and added, 'Voices 'eard, off.'

Two or three men were singing in the German trench, and as they sang the rest joined in and 'Deutschland Über Alles' rolled forth in full strength and harmony.

'Bray-vo! An' not arf bad neither,' said Private Robinson approvingly.
'Though I dunno wot it's all abart. Now s'pose we gives 'em another.'

They did, and the Germans responded with 'The Watch on the Rhine.' This time Private Robinson and the rest of the Towers recognised the song and capped it in great glee with 'Winding up the Watch on the Rhine,' a parody which does not go out of its way to spare German feelings.

'An' 'ow d'you like that, ol' sossidge scoffers?' demanded Private
Robinson loudly.

'You vait,' bellowed a guttural voice. 'Us vind you op—quick!'

'Vind op—squeak, an' squeakin',' retorted Private Robinson.

The German reply was drowned in a burst of new song which ran like wild-fire the length of the German trench. A note of fierce passion rang in the voices, and the Towers sat listening in silence.

'Dunno wot it is,' said one. 'But it sounds like they was sayin' something nasty, an' meanin' it all.'

But one word, shouted fiercely and lustily, caught Private Robinson's ear.

''Ark!' he said in eager anticipation. 'I do believe it's—s-sh! There!' triumphantly, as again the word rang out—the one word at the end of the verse . . . 'England.'

'It's it. It's the "'Ymn of 'Ate"!'

The word flew down the British trench—'It's the 'Ymn! They're singin' the "'Ymn of 'Ate,"' and every man sat drinking the air in eagerly. This was luck, pure gorgeous luck. Hadn't the Towers, like many another regiment, heard about the famous 'Hymn of Hate,' and read it in the papers, and had it declaimed with a fine frenzy by Private 'Enery Irving? Hadn't they, like plenty other regiments, longed to hear the tune, but longed in vain, never having found one who knew it? And here it was being sung to them in full chorus by the Germans themselves. Oh, this was luck.

The mouth-organist was sitting with his mouth open and his head turned to listen, as if afraid to miss a single note.

''Ave you got it, Snapper?' whispered Private Robinson anxiously at the end. 'Will you be able to remember it?'

Snapper, with his eyes fixed on vacancy, began to play the air over softly, when from further down the trench came a murmur of applause, that rose to a storm of hand-clappings and shouts of 'Bravo!' and 'Encore—'core—'core!'

The mouth-organist played on unheedingly and Private Robinson sat following him with attentive ear.

'I'm not sure of that bit just there,' said the player, and tried it over with slight variations. 'P'raps I'll remember it better after a day or two. I'm like that wi' some toons.'

'We might kid 'em to sing it again,' said Robinson hopefully, as another loud cry of 'Encore!' rang from the trench.

'Was you know vat we haf sing?' asked a German voice in tones of some wonderment.

'It's a great song, Dutchie,' replied Private Robinson. 'Fine song—goot—bong! Sing it again to us.'

'You haf not understand,' said the German angrily, and then suddenly from a little further along the German trench a clear tenor rose, singing the Hymn in English. The Towers subsided into rapt silence, hugging themselves over their stupendous luck. When the singer came to the end of the verse he paused an instant, and a roar leaped from the German trench . . . 'England!' It died away and the singer took up the solo. Quicker and quicker he sang, the song swirling upward in a rising note of passion. It checked and hung an instant on the last line, as a curling wave hangs poised; and even as the falling wave breaks thundering and rushing, so the song broke in a crash of sweeping sound along the line of the German trench on that one word—'England!'

Before the last sound of it had passed, the singer had plunged into the next verse, his voice soaring and shaking with an intensity of feeling. The whole effect was inspiring, wonderful, dramatic. One felt that it was emblematic, the heart and soul of the German people poured out in music and words. And the scorn, the bitter anger, hatred, and malice that vibrated again in that chorused last word might well have brought fear and trembling to the heart of an enemy. But the enemy immediately concerned, to wit His Majesty's Regiment of Tower Bridge Foot, were most obviously not impressed with fear and trembling. Impressed they certainly were. Their applause rose in a gale of clappings and cries and shouts. They were impressed, and Private 'Enery Irving, clapping his hands sore and stamping his feet in the trench-bottom, voiced the impression exactly. 'It beats Saturday night in the gallery o' the old Brit.,' he said enthusiastically. 'That bloke—blimy—'e ought to be doin' the star part at Drury Lane'; and he wiped his hot hands on his trousers and fell again to beating them together, palms and fingers curved cunningly, to obtain a maximum of noise from the effort.

An officer passed hurriedly along the trench. 'If there's any firing, every man to fire over the parapet and only straight to his own front,' he said, and almost at the moment there came a loud 'bang' from out in front, followed quickly by 'bang-bang-bang' in a running series of reports.

The shouting had cut off instantly on the first bang, some rifles squibbed off at intervals for a few seconds and increased suddenly to a sputtering roar. With the exception of one platoon near their centre the Towers replied rapidly to the fire, the maxims joined in, and a minute later, with a whoop and a crash the shells from a British battery passed over the trench and burst along the line of the German parapet. After that the fire died away gradually, and about ten minutes later a figure scrambled hastily over the parapet and dropped into safety, his boots squirting water, his wet shirt-tails flapping about his bare wet and muddy legs. He was the 'bomb officer' who had taken advantage of the 'Hymn of Hate' diversion to go crawling up a little ditch that crossed the neutral ground until he was near enough to fling into the German trench the bombs he carried, and, as he put it later in reporting to the O.C., 'give 'em something to hate about.'

And each evening after that, for as long as they were in the trenches, the men of the Tower Bridge Foot made a particular point of singing the 'Hymn of Hate,' and the wild yell of 'England' that came at the end of each verse might almost have pleased any enemy of England's instead of aggravating them intensely, as it invariably did the Germans opposite, to the extent of many wasted rounds.

'It's been a great do, Snapper,' said Private 'Enery Irving some days after, as the battalion tramped along the road towards 'reserve billets.' 'An' I 'aven't enjoyed myself so much for months. Didn't it rag 'em beautiful, an' won't we fair stagger the 'ouse at the next sing-sing o' the brigade?'

Snapper chuckled and breathed contentedly into his beloved mouth-organ, and first 'Enery and then the marching men took up the words:

'Ite of the 'eart, an' 'ite of the 'and,
'Ite by water, an' 'ite by land,
'Oo do we 'ite to beat the band?

(deficient memories, it will be noticed, being compensated by effective inventions in odd lines).

The answering roar of 'England' startled almost to shying point the horse of a brigadier trotting up to the tail of the column.

'What on earth are those fellows singing?' he asked one of his officers while soothing his mount.

'I'm not sure, sir,' said the officer, 'but I believe—by the words of it—yes, it's the Germans' "Hymn of Hate."'

A French staff officer riding with the brigadier stared in astonishment, first at the marching men, and then at the brigadier, who was rocking with laughter in his saddle.

'Where on earth did they get the tune? I've never heard it before,' said the brigadier, and tried to hum it. The staff officer told him something of the tale as he had heard it, and the Frenchman's amazement and the brigadier's laughter grew as the tale was told.

We 'ave one foe, an' one alone—England!

bellowed the Towers, and out of the pause that came so effectively before the last word of the verse rose a triumphant squeal from the mouth-organ, and the appealing voice of Private 'Enery Irving—'Naw then, put a bit of 'ate into it.' But even that artist of the emotions had to admit his critical sense of the dramatic fully satisfied by the tone of vociferous wrath and hatred flung into the Towers' answering roar of '. . . . England!'

'What an extraordinary people!' said the French staff officer, eyeing the brigadier shaking with laughter on his prancing charger. And he could only heave his shoulders up in an ear-embracing shrug of non-comprehension when the laughing brigadier tried to explain to him (as I explained to you in the beginning):

'And the best bit of the whole joke is that this particular regiment is
English to the backbone.'