First to find an English soldier apologizing for looking into a house, and then to find him talking French like a poilu."
"The Rough Road"
William John Locke
Their barrage of gun-fire fell heavily soon after the attack began by the French, but for the most part into the floods which our "poilu" friends did not try to cross, so that they jeered at these water-spouts ahead of them.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs
A blind poilu went by on the arm of a girl and, though his eyes were covered with a bandage and his free hand moved gropingly, his laugh was that of a lover, and not a hopeless one.
"The Tempering"
Charles Neville Buck