Get aht! said another. What s cover against this ere eat? Sticks
to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground ll let
us, and then drive a trench.
Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha been
born a rabbit, Snippy.
Ain t they got any necks, then? said a third, abruptly a little,
contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe.
I repeated my description.
Octopuses, said he, that s what I calls em. Talk about fishers of
men fighters of fish it is this time!
It ain t no murder killing beasts like that, said the first speaker.
Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish em? said the
little dark man. You carn tell what they might do.
Where s your shells? said the first speaker. There ain t no time. Do
it in a rush, that s my tip, and do it at once.
So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the
railway station to get as many morning papers as I could.
But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long morning
and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse of
the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the
hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn t know
anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people
in the town quite secure again in the presence of the military, and I
heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son
was among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on
the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their houses.
I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day
was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I took a
cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the
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