"STUMPY"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 183, 23 April 1918, Page 6

"STUMPY"

THE BOY WHO DID HIS BIT AND "GAVE" HIS ARM (By Rifleman Patrick Mac Gill, Author of "Tho Great Push," lite.) [Published by -Authority of the War Office, per favour of the Royal Colonial Institute.] Dirty hipe and buttons not bright They are all put. down as crimes; And you've got to put up with anything In these hard times. Tho singer, his face and uniform streaked with mud, leant back against the parapet and sung at the Hop of Ilia voice. And he needed to sing loudly to ma.ke himself heard, for the Germans wero engaged in blowing tho trench in which he was stationed to pieces. All nround tho heavy projectiles wore bursting, breaking the parapets, scattering the sandbags, and hurling tho roofs of dug-outs into air. Men in the bays, standing to arms, coughed and choked as they breathed in tlie cordite fumes. Gas helmets wero out and ready, for gas shells might bo sent across at any moment, and it was as well to bo propared. x

Dug-outs wero vacated by the soldiers, and stretcher-bearers were hard at work tending to the wounded. The job was a difficult ono, for the duck-lwards wer& covered with slush, and as the men went about to help the stricken they had often to plod their way hip-deep through the muck.-Men who wero hit were lifted on to the firestep and their wounds dressed. From all round come a confused murmur of groans and sighs as the shells pounded at the parapets and threw tho sandbags in on tho trench garrison. All tho men cowered down in tho shelter of tho parapet, knowing not what moment would be their last on earth.

And through all this 'confusion, rising loud and clear, into the cold winter day came the voice of the simrei\

"There's strawberry jam for the sergeant's mess,

And tho corporals never go short, I guess. But the poor old privato cets less and lcss-

In those hard times." The singer stretched liis arms and yawned. Then he looked across the sandbags and ducked his head suddenly ns a shower of splinters flew over the trench.

I ' "Jlist missed that!" he laughed, looking down at his mates who sat on the step at his leet. "I believe the beggars aro going to strafe us" ho muttered. "Well, they've been sending stuff across for the last liour or more," said a redhair sergeant, lvlio was standing in the tTench, smoking a cigarette. "Tlioy should be fmishiug / jiow instead of. beginning, Stumpy.'' "Well, we've got to put up witli anying in the3o hard times," said Stumpy, who even in conversation was unable to ease himself from the burden of t'lio song which bad recently become a favourite with the soldiers of the London Regiment. , Stumpy, who was small and short, bad joined up at the beginning of the war, and now ho had seen years fiervice with the British Forces in the field* When he entered the Army lie was only sixteen years of age, but as no birtn certificate was required in proof of his statement that lie wits twenty years old, he was allowed to .don khaki. Being a cheery, good-natured boy, his mates all liked him, and he was not long in becoming a favourite with his pjitoon. His mother was a widow, living in a narrow little street in the East-End of Lowdou. Stumpy was her only child, and he loved her very ninth, making ail allowance from his daily wage for her help. He even saved what was and sent most of it home to his mother. Stumpv was a great fighter, a man willing to dare anything. The blond of heroes pulsed through his weedy form and made him a soldier loved and admired by his mates. _ Life in France appealed to him. Nothing ho had ever known could compare with the red-brick houses in which he was so often billet™ruined homes a bullet's reach from the firing-line. To Stumpy the long night marchcs over the cobbled roads to and from the line of war were enchanted trips in a Tealm of wonder and romance. He was doinif his hit, workinpr with Digger men and bearing up as bravely as any. And the fun of it when he drank his watery wine in the crowded cafes or jwolcpd hi? pi"nv rt tt n on the .sadden firestep. when he helped to carry the rations up fromjfche dump at nipht, or went out in the darkness across No Mans Land to raid the trench of the enemy appealed to the boy*

He had his song for every occasion, and when other men shrank back -under the shadow of the paranot, cowering as the enemy shells flung the earth heavens high and refashioned the contour of the trench lines,' Stumpy would stand as high on the firestep as his five foot four inches would allow, and roll out his heart in spng: "We've got to' put up with anything In these hard times."

And it came to pass that one day when Stumpy was singing this song to the accompaniment of German guns, a shell splinter hit him on the arm, and knocked him down into the slush of the trench. The sergeant who was standing there nishotl to help Uiiu, uud lified him out of tho mire. Other men who were near came to help the hoy. "He has sot a bad packet, said the sergeant. "A pitv, too. for Stumpy was th<" life of the platoon." They placed the unconscious hoy on the firestep, and dressed his wound, forgetting the shelling as they tended the little Cockney. ' Presently the stretcher-bearers came to earrv him' awar. He was olaeed on the stretcher, and lifted out of the trench. As he was being moved he regained consciousness. ' "Wh"re am TP" he inquired. "You're going to the dressing station, sa'd the sergeant. "You've got it in the arm." , ... "Well, we've not to put up with anything in these hard times," were the last words of Stumpy as he was lwne away to the dressing station and Blighty. , Two months later in an Ei?lish hosniti'.l an Armv chaplain spoke to a boy. who was walking alomr the ward with' an cnmtv sleeve pinned to his tunic. "Yon lost vnur arm."' said the c''«nlain, in a kindlv voice; "T haven't lost it." said the boy. whose j nickname was Stumpy, "I gave if." :