Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters Up! to ’ear from ’er the last few weeks, but I gets a sort o’ comfort out of listenin’ w’ile the cor’pral calls off the letters. A wore- out ole bloke like me can’t expect nobody to be sendin’ ’im lovin’ messages, but it don’t do no ’arm, do it, standin’ eroun’ an’ listen- in’, an’ sort o’ makin’ bets with yerselfi— now mebbey the next name’ll be mine? Nor—Well, p’raps the next—an’ so on. Though it do send you away feelin’ sort 0’ empty like.” Just then a guard at the other side of the paddock challenged sharply. “Halt! Who goes there?” “Orderly officer,’ came the stern, quiet response. Fullick slipped under the picket rope, slapped an opening between two horses huddling together for comfort, and made for his own post. Somehow I couldn’t get him out of my mind during the rest of that dreary vigil. The next evening, when, after ‘‘letters up,” I had seen Fullick’s lingering figure shamble off in the mud, I told the postman- corporal what I had learned on night guard. ‘“‘The poor ole bleeder,’’ said the corporal. “She won’t write ’im, nor nobody else. An’ Christmas a-comin’, an’ all the boys gettin’ parcels from ’ome. Rough on an ole cove like ’im, out ’ere alone, an’ nobody in the world to send ’im so much as a ‘Merry Christmas’ post-card.”’ “Well, it’s his fault, I suppose,” I said; but that didn’t make Fullick’s lot any happier. fyie) THEN came the bright idea. The jg, London Daily Sketch in my hand provided the inspiration. It pub- lished a column urging its readers to send in Christmas parcels, to be distributed by the Sketch to soldiers at the front having no friends or relatives to send them presents. The article requested the donors to inclose a letter in their parcels addressed to ‘“My dear soldier.”’ I took the corporal into my confidence. ‘*Just the ticket,’’ he commented. I swore him to secrecy and proceeded to write a note to Sketch. I lied shameless- ly. I told them Fullick was an old veteran of the Boer war who wanted to do some- thing for his country and had enlisted in the A. S. C. I admitted he was no hero but emphasized his friendless state and urged that unless the Skeich sent him one of its 139 parcels he would have a pitifully thin Christmas. During the ensuing fortnight Fullick singled me out for his attentions. I was not flattered. Usually it was some little thing he wanted—tobacco, cigarets, the price of a pint of beer, that brought him to my tent. At times I grew caustic. Then he would squint at me through his bleary eyes, into which the tears of senility so easily sprang, and humble himself like a mangy, loving dog. “Don’t be ’ard on me, matey,” he’d plead. ‘‘Ain’t you the only friend I’ve got in all this ’ere bloomin’ camp. Don’t be ’ard on a wore-out ole bloke like me. . I need a pint, Gawd knows I need it, matey.” And he’d get it. In fact I arranged with him to come to me every night for thrip- pence to get that pint. He accepted his allotment gratefully. He fawned upon me on all occasions. I became his “‘little ole brown son,” his ‘‘dear ole matey”’ and his “good ole toff” by turns. Once, at least, he proved his gratitude in no mean fashion. It was on my next night guard, and a raging devil of a night it was, half rain, half sleet, half snow, with a gnawing wind howl- ing down from the north, the horses stamp- ing and tugging at their head-ropes on the verge of a stampede. - Mine was to be the second watch, midnight to four o’clock. Fullick had the early trick. I made myself a snug bed among the hay- trusses in the forage tent beside the pad- dock. Fullick was to awaken me at twelve to relieve him. I awoke to find him crawling into the hay beside me. ‘Twelve already?” I grumbled, sleepily. “It’s all right, me little ole brown son,” said Fullick, ““Go back tosleep. It’s turned four. I done yer watch for yer.”’ The days dragged on toward Christmas. Each day it rained steadily, mercilessly, from morning until night. Each day we splashed about that sea of mud, once a huge dry pasture land, laboring ceaselessly in the rain. Each evening that crescent of be- draggled Ally Slopers gathered outside our tent to the corporal’s cry of ‘letters up!” Always the last to drag himself away was Fullick. Christmas Eve came and brought with it ten bags of mail for the Ally Slopers. We tentmates of the postman-corporal helped Comichoooks a CO