SINBAD THE SOLDIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1916, Page 8

SINBAD THE SOLDIER.

■I - ■" — — BRITISH OFFICER'S LANDLADY. London, September C. One of the most amusing war stories to lioiid of late is.one told in certain letters received from an English officer "somewhere in France," who is billeted in an ancient dimics hoilsc situated not far behind the firing line. In his first letter concerning his experiences he says: '•There is a terrible old woman in this billet who unfortunately some time ago got a shell in her house which blew the front wall in, and while she was looking for a now house some soldiers, passing by, seeing the hole, walked in, and, I regret to say. made themselves very comfortable without ns'.;ing permission. "Since that their sins have been visited upon my head. The old lady has told me the story at least a dozen times, and is as suspicious as she can me. She's sitting in the room now telling me all her woe. ''She's not supposed to enter a room used by us, but I haven't the courage to tell her to clear out. 1 saw her hit a big French policeman over the head with an umbrella this afternoon because he made her open the cellar door during the bombardment.'' A later letter carries the story further:— '■The old woman is still here, and is a most terrible nuisance. She has taken a. strong fancy to me. and nearly kissed me when I came from the trenches yesterday. I think I'm the only one of her lodgers who has not called the police to her. "She brings me puddings and things, and stands talking for hours in incomprehensible French. If she only knew, how I dislike her, but I am too frightened to show it. She also sits up every night till 1 come in, so I daren't be out late, because one doesn't like to keep an old woman of eighty-seven waiting up for you, so I've given up cards, and I can't dine too well, or she would probably thrash me when 1 came and then drag me to confession afterwards. "She is a holy old terror, and I'd rather be in the trenches. "The other day, to get rid of her, I pretended to be ill, and went and lay down; but I'm hanged if every -halfhour she didn't come up with cups of camomile tea or some such horrible mixture and stand talking till I'd drunk every drop. I'd have got up the nest morning if I'd been dying,".