Voices of Silence

by Vivien Noakes

  Dearer now to men who roam –

  Wakened by the magic rings.

  Airy castles, wonder-built,

  Shortlived memories that charm,

  Hopes of future, fancy-gilt,

  Visioned peace and victor’s palm.

  Wayward, fleeting thoughts will stray,

  Words, warm with the weaving spell

  Wrought by winding smoke-wreaths, may

  On mind’s store of treasure dwell.

  Spirits rising care defy,

  Laughter chimes with tale or joke,

  Vanish worry, woe and sigh,

  In the twirling fumes of smoke.

  Cigarettes! Bear, in your wake,

  Consolation, cheer and wit;

  Woodbine, Player, Golden Flake,

  Truly, you have done your bit!

  Minor Worries

  If the Hun lets off some gas –

  Never mind.

  If the Hun attacks in mass –

  Never mind.

  If your dugout’s blown to bits,

  Or the C.O.’s throwing fits,

  Or a crump your rum jar hits –

  Never mind.

  If your trench is mud knee-high –

  Never mind.

  You can’t find a spot that’s dry –

  Never mind.

  If a sniper has you set,

  Through dents in your parapet,

  And your troubles fiercer get –

  Never mind.

  If you’re whizzbanged day and night –

  Never mind

  Bully all you get to bite –

  Never mind.

  If you’re on a working party,

  Let your grin be wide and hearty,

  Though the sappers may be tarty –

  Never mind.

  If machine guns join the muddle –

  Never mind.

  Though you’re lying in a puddle –

  Never mind.

  If a duckboard barks your shin,

  And the barbed wire rips your skin,

  ’Tis reward for all your sin –

  So never mind.

  But this warning I’d attest –

  Have a care.

  When your Div. is back at rest –

  Then beware.

  When that long three months is over,

  And you’ve lost your canteen cover,

  Shoot yourself or find another –

  Have it there!

  Have you all your drill forgotten? –

  Luckless wight.

  Through those months so rain besotten –

  Day and night.

  On the left you’ll form platoon,

  Willy nilly, six till noon,

  Front line trench will seem a boon –

  Drill’s a rite.

  Oh! you poor unhappy thing –

  Be not sad.

  Just remember when all’s wrong –

  And you’re mad,

  Though your worries may be great,

  They’re but part, at any rate,

  Of poor Fritz’s awful fate –

  Buck up, lad!

  To all ‘Doubting Thomases’

  Now listen ye of mournful mien, whose bleatings rend the air,

  Who spread an air of gloom where’er you go,

  That though of cleverness you have p’r’aps more than your fair share,

  Yet most of us just hate your wail of woe.

  One day ’tis ‘this’, and next day ‘that’, your bogies come at will,

  Of fearful ills to come you rave and rant,

  You said a year ago the war was lost – we’re fighting still,

  The job has been no easier for your cant.

  In reverse you see disaster, and a victory spurs you on

  To still greater efforts in the realms of doubt,

  ‘We’ll be lured into a trap’, or ‘We can ne’er hold what we’ve won’,

  And ‘We’ll all be starved to death’ your constant shout.

  ’Tis true that mostly you are those who ne’er have known the joy

  Of living in ten feet of mud and slime,

  Or the ecstasy which thrills one, sheer delight without alloy,

  When you’re dodging crumps and Minnies all the time.

  So in future cut the grousing, and for God’s sake wear a grin,

  The time is surely coming in a while,

  When in spite of all your croakings the old Huns will be ‘all in’,

  Cut the everlasting wail and smile, man, SMILE!

  The Armoured(illo) Train

  This is the Armoured(illo) Train.

  His great advantages are plain;

  A lumbering beast, yet still we note

  That in his cumbrous overcoat

  Mosquito bites he can defy

  While spitting fire as he goes by;

  So safety lurks beneath his weight

  Of Armadillo-pattern plate.

  St John Hamund

  The Sentrypede

  The Centipede, so folks repeat,

  Has something like a hundred feet.

  The Sentrypede has only two –

  Enough for what he has to do;

  But when he’s done his Sentry-go

  In ammunition boots, you know,

  Each foot is in a sorry state,

  And feels about a hundredweight!

  St John Hamund

  [The world wasn’t made in a day]

  The world wasn’t made in a day,

  And Eve didn’t ride on a ’bus,

  But most of the world’s in a sandbag,

  The rest of it’s plastered on us.

  [Little stacks of sandbags]

  Little stacks of sandbags,

  Little lumps of clay;

  Make our blooming trenches

  In which we work and play.

  Merry little whizz-bang,

  Jolly little crump

  Made our trench a picture,

  Wiggle, woggle, wump.

  Why Not?

  We’ve had a play in ragtime, and we’ve had a ragtime band,

  We’ve had a ragtime army, and we’ve had a ragtime land;

  But why not let us have what we have never had before?

  Let’s wade right in tomorrow and let’s have a ragtime war.

  Let’s carry up our duckboards to a ragtime’s jerky strains,

  Let’s whistle ragtime ditties while we’re bashing out Hun brains,

  Let’s introduce this melody in all we say and do,

  In our operation orders, and in all our lies to Q.

  Let us write O.O.s to music, and the red-hats can decide

  The witching hour of zero to a dainty Gaby Glide;

  We’ll take the fateful plunge, and when we venture o’er the top

  We’ll do it to a Turkey Trot or tuneful Boston Hop.

  We’ll drink our S.R.D. to tune, and even ‘chatting up’

  Becomes a melody in rhyme if done to ‘Dixie Pup’,

  A bombing raid to ‘Old Kentuck’ would make a Fritzie smile,

  He’d stop a bomb with pleasure to a ragtime’s mystic guile.

  Can you see our giddy ‘Q’ staff, as they go up the line,

  Just walking round the trenches to the air ‘Kentucky Mine’,

  Gaily prancing down the duckboards, as they tumble o’er a bucket

  To the quiet seducing strains of ‘My Dear Home in Old Kentucket’.

  The Duck Board

  It’s a long way to Tipperary,

  Or so it always seems;

  There’s a long, long trail awinding

  Into the land of dreams.

  And there’s a long and narrow path

  Our Warriors know well,

  For one way leads to Blighty,

  And the other way to – well!

  It’s the Duck Board Glide,

  It’s the Duck Board Slide,

  On a cold and frosty night;

  For it’s over a mile

  In single file
/>   Out in the pale moon-light.

  It’s nippy; slippy;

  Bumpy; jumpy;

  Shell-holes either side;

  And when machine guns cough

  You can all drop off

  That Duck Board Glide.

  It’s very dark and lonely,

  And you see, when on the top,

  A Very Light; so in the trench

  You very light-ly drop.

  But when you want to reach the line,

  That’s done as best you may,

  There’s only one path that you have to take,

  It is the only way.

  It’s the Duck Board Glide, etc.

  When you were young, and went to Church,

  Or Chapel, it may be,

  The Padre used to take some text

  To strafe you all with glee.

  ‘The path is long and narrow

  Along which you ought to go!’

  We did not know then what it was,

  But now, of course, we know.

  It’s the Duck Board Glide, etc.

  Sivori Levey

  Joseph Arthur Brown

  The name of Joseph Arthur Brown

  By some profound mischance

  Was sent right through to G.H.Q.

  As ‘Killed in action, France.’

  So when poor Joseph went to draw

  His bully beef and bread,

  ‘You’re not upon the strength, my son,’

  The Quartermaster said.

  To Sergeant Baird then Joseph went

  And told his fortune harsh,

  But Sergeant Baird on Joseph glared

  And pulled his great moustache.

  ‘Have I not taught you discipline

  For three long years?’ said he,

  ‘If you are down as dead, young Brown,

  Why, dead you’ll have to be.’

  In vain the journal of his town

  Was bought by friends to please,

  That he might see his eulogy

  In local Journalese;

  For to the Captain Joseph went

  With teardrops in his eye,

  And said, ‘I know I’m dead, but oh!

  I am so young to die!’

  And at the Captain’s feet he knelt

  And clasped him by the knee.

  But on his face no sign of grace

  Poor Joseph Brown could see.

  ‘Then to John Bull I’ll write,’ he cried,

  ‘Since supplication fails.’

  ‘But you are dead,’ the Captain said,

  ‘And dead men tell no tales.’

  So reckless passion seized upon

  The luckless Private Brown,

  And with two blows upon the nose

  He knocked the Captain down.

  ’Mid cries of horror and surprise

  They led the lad away.

  Before the Colonel grim and stern

  They brought him up next day.

  But when the Colonel sentenced Brown

  (R.62703)

  With thund’rous voice and language choice

  To thirty days F.P.,

  Across the trembling prisoner’s face

  A smile was seen to spread,

  As he replied, with conscious pride,

  ‘You can’t, ’cos I am dead.’

  Edward de Stein

  The Missing Leader

  What is Master Winston doing?

  What new paths is he pursuing?

  What strange broth can he be brewing?

  Is he painting, by commission,

  Portraits of the Coalition

  For the R.A. exhibition?

  Is he Jacky-obin or anti?

  Is he likely to ‘go Fanti’,

  Or becoming shrewd and canty?

  Is he in disguise at Kovel,

  Living in a moujik’s hovel,

  Making a tremendous novel?

  Does he run a photo-play show?

  Or in sæva indignatio

  Is he writing for HORATIO?

  Fired by the divine afflatus

  Does he weekly lacerate us,

  Like a Juvenal renatus?

  As the great financial purist,

  Will he smite the sinecurist

  Or emerge as a Futurist?

  Is he regularly sending

  HAIG and BEATTY screeds unending,

  Good advice for censure blending?

  Is he ploughing, is he hoeing?

  Is he planting beet, or going

  In for early ’tato-growing?

  Is he writing verse or prosing,

  Or intent upon disclosing

  Gifts for musical composing?

  Is he lecturing to flappers?

  Is he tunnelling with sappers?

  Has he joined the U-boat trappers?

  Or, to petrify recorders

  Of events within our borders,

  Has he taken Holy Orders?

  Is he well or ill or middling?

  Is he fighting, is he fiddling? –

  He can’t be only thumb-twiddling.

  These are merely dim surmises,

  But experience advises

  Us to look for weird surprises,

  Somersaults, and strange disguises.

  * * *

  Thus we summed the situation

  When Sir Hedworth Meux’ oration

  Brought about a transformation.

  Lo! the Blenheim Boanerges

  On a sudden re-emerges

  And, to calm the naval gurges,

  FISHER’S restoration urges.

  C.L. Graves

  FOURTEEN

  Leave

  Days in ‘Blighty’

  Although officers were given leave every three months or so, men in the ranks could wait more than a year for a chance to get home. For those who had a long way to go once they had crossed the Channel – men who lived in the Highlands or in Cornwall, for example – much of their precious ten days was spent travelling, starting with a walk to the railhead, then tedious waiting for a train to the Channel port and more time wasted as they hung around for a boat to take them to England.

  Although for some the homecoming was joyous, many soon realised that their experiences had separated them from those at home. The up-beat propaganda of the press and the apparent optimism of men’s letters meant that their relatives had little chance to understand what they were truly undergoing, and they found themselves ill at ease and disoriented while they were at home. Although many dreaded the end of leave with its renewed parting, others were glad to get back to the front and to companions who understood what this war was really like.

  A Song

  (To W.N.W., an Adjutant)

  Sing me a song of the Army,

  Of khaki and rifles and drums;

  Sing me a ballad of heroes,

  Taking each day as it comes.

  Sing of the colonel who bellows,

  Sing of the major who swears,

  Sing of the slackers who don’t care a jot,

  And the second lieutenant who dares.

  Sing of the raptures of marching

  (I may interrupt, but don’t grieve!);

  But above all sit down now and tell me

  The glorious MYTH about LEAVE!

  Lucas Cappe

  The Wire that Failed

  Sez I to my wife: ‘As leave is tight,

  Just send me a wire to-morrow night.

  Say you’re moving, or had a fire,

  Or caught the measles, or – anyway wire!’

  The telegram came at three to-day,

  And it done no good, for I grieve to say

  She’s short of sense is that wife of mine –

  Here’s her telegram, line for line:

  ‘Please grant leave to Private Bell,

  I’ve got the measles and don’t feel well.

  The house is on fire – I’m filled with sorrow,

  And if that’s not enough, we’re moving tomorrow!’

  Four Wo
rds

  There are four words, the sweetest words

  In all of human speech,

  More sweet than are all songs of birds,

  Or Lyrics poets teach.

  This life may be a vale of tears,

  A sad and dreary thing –

  Four words, and trouble disappears

  And birds begin to sing.

  Four words, and all the roses bloom,

  The sun begins to shine:

  Four words, will dissipate the gloom,

  And water turn to wine.

  Four words, will hush the saddest row,

  And cause you not to grieve –

  Ah well, here goes, you’ve got them now:

  ‘You’re next for leave.’

  Louie Samuels

  [If you’re waking call me early, call me early, sergeant dear]

  If you’re waking call me early, call me early, sergeant dear,

  For I’m very, very weary, and my warrant’s come, I hear;

  Oh! it’s ‘blightie’ for a spell, and all my troubles are behind,

  And I’ve seven days before me

  (Hope the sea will not be stormy)

  Keep the war a’going sergeant,

  Train’s at six, just bear in mind!

  Of Harold, and his Fatal Taste for Souvenirs

  Who lists to what I here relate, a tale both sad and movin’ hears

  Of Harold, who was taught too late to curb his itch for souvenirs;

  It really was as though he deemed it heinous as a sin to rest

  Inactive when the country teemed with objects of such interest;

  And once his fancy caught a thing, he’d jump out straight and whisk it in –

  A splinter from a Gotha’s wing – a Very light – a biscuit-tin –

  Shell-noses, clasp-knives, water-flasks, Bosche helmets, and a rifle too,

  Old buttons, badges, Hun gas-masks, and every kind of trifle too.

  His shell-cases just stood in stacks; he filled the entire bunk with them,

  And leather jerkins, German packs – his quarters fairly stunk with them.