Voices of Silence

by Vivien Noakes

The front was flying Eastward, and only left the dead.

  And I thought ‘How long we lay there, and watched across the wire,

  While the guns roared round the valley and set the skies afire’.

  But now there are homes in Hamel, and tents in the Vale of Hell

  And a camp at Suicide Corner, where half the Regiment fell.

  The new troops follow after and tread the land we won;

  To them it is so much hillside, re-wrested from the Hun.

  To us ’tis almost sacred, this dreary mile of mud;

  The shell holes hold our history and half of them our blood.

  Here at the head of Peche Street ’twas death to show your face,

  To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place.

  To me how many spirits hung round the Kentish Caves.

  But the new men see no spirits – they only see the graves.

  I found the half dug ditches we fashioned for the fight.

  We lost a score of men there – young James was killed that night.

  I saw the star shells staring, I heard the bullets hail,

  But the new men pass unheeding – they never heard the tale.

  I crossed the blood-red ribbon that once was No-Man’s Land;

  I saw a winter daybreak and a creeping minute hand:

  And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot,

  And here was William lying – but the new men knew them not.

  And I said ‘There is still the river and still the stiff stark trees

  To treasure here our story, but there are only these’.

  But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low

  ‘The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here – we know’.

  A.P. Herbert

  Meditation in June, 1917

  I

  How can we reason still, how look afar,

  Who, these three years now, are

  Drifting, poor flotsam hugely heaved and hurled

  In the birthday of a world,

  Upon the waves of the creative sea?

  How gain lucidity

  Or even keep the faith wherewith at first

  We met the storm that burst,

  The singing hope of revolution’s prime?

  For in that noble time

  We saw the petty world dissolve away

  And fade into a day

  Where dwelt new spirits of a better growth,

  Unchecked by spite and sloth.

  We saw, and even now we seem to see,

  In fitful revelry,

  Like hills obscured and hid by earthly mist,

  The hopes that first we kissed:

  We see them, catch at them and lose again

  In apathy and pain

  What maybe was (though it once seemed ours to hold)

  No more than fairy gold.

  II

  We pity those whom quick death overtakes,

  Though they will never see

  How hope dissolves and founded loyalty shakes

  Traitorously, piteously.

  They lose at most and death is voiceless still

  Nor whispers in their ears

  When they are lying on the deep-scarred hill

  What our calm silence hears.

  They lose all various life, they lose the day,

  The clouds, the winds, the rain,

  The blossoms down an English road astray

  They will not see again;

  Great is their loss but more tremendous things

  To us at home are given,

  Doubts, fears and greeds and shameful waverings

  That hide the blood-red heaven.

  They knew no doubt and fear was soon put by:

  Freely their souls could move

  In deeds that gave new life to loyalty

  A sharper edge to love.

  They are the conquerors, the happy dead,

  Who gave their lives away,

  And now amid the trenches where they bled,

  Forgetful of the day,

  Deaf, blind and unaware, sleep on and on,

  Nor open eyes to weep,

  Know nought of what is ended or what begun

  But only and always sleep.

  III

  We said on the first day, we said and swore

  That self should be no more,

  That we were risen, that we would wholly be

  For love and liberty;

  And in the exhilaration of that oath

  We cast off spite and sloth

  And laboured for an hour, till we began,

  Man after piteous man,

  To lose the splendour, to forget the dream

  And leave our noble theme.

  To find again our lusts and villainies

  And seek a baser prize;

  This we have done and what is left undone

  Cries out beneath the sun.

  How glad a dawn fades thus in foggy night,

  Where not a star shines bright!

  IV

  Is all then gone? That nobler morning mood

  When pain appeared an honour and grief a gift

  And what was difficult was also good?

  Are all our wishes on the waves adrift?

  The young, the eager-hearted, they are gone,

  And we, the stay-at-homes, are tired and old,

  Careless how carelessly our work is done,

  Forgetful how that morning rose in gold

  When all our hearts cried out in unison,

  Triumphant in the new triumphal sun.

  How dull a night succeeds! how dark and cold!

  We will arise. Oh, not as then with singing,

  But silence in our mouths and no word said,

  Though wracks of that lost glory round us clinging

  Shames us with broken oaths we swore the dead,

  But steadfast in humility we rise,

  Hoping no glory, having merited none,

  Through the long night to toil with aching eyes

  And pray that our humbler hearts may earn the sun.

  Edward Shanks

  In the Third Year of the War

  ‘Would that the war were over, and again

  We walked together in a Wiltshire lane.

  The West shrills keenly through the Hackpen thorn:

  From that high, lonely wood by Winterborne

  Wet leaves are whirled far out across the vale.

  We should find comfort in the downland gale;

  Its glorious blast, so wild, yet angerless,

  Blows sorrow from the heart and bitterness.’

  * * *

  So, like some wandering child, we stretch our hands

  To shining phantom faces, and far lands

  Of heart’s desire.

  O solace, vainly sought

  To light the sad opacity of thought!

  There is no charm in any outward thing

  To ease the heart from smarting at the sting

  Of friendship snapped, of dull frustrated days

  Of hopes that perish in the desolate ways.

  The wind of mirth and sympathy is spilled

  Wherewith the vessel of our hearts was filled,

  Lending bright influence to the wind and trees.

  Our lives are empty now; and how for these

  Can earth, that lives not, find reviving breath

  To quicken the sterility of death?

  The sun-rays still go wheeling o’er the hill;

  But closed those eyes their passing used to fill

  With sudden glory. Say! shall we return,

  Where every sight can teach us but to mourn?

  Shall we return, where every field and tree

  Is radiant with the light of memory?

  Here, by this hedgerow, Rupert musing lay:

  This pool was Nigel’s haunt at morning grey:

  Down that hill-side Ned ran so cheerily

  The day he left, and turned to call good-bye.

&n
bsp; If once again we climb to Barbary,

  None but the dead will keep us company:

  Their printless feet will fall with ours, unseen;

  And silent voices fill the listening dene.

  ‘Dear land of noon-day light’ we said before,

  But now – ‘Dear land of ghosts!’ – for evermore.

  * * *

  The old, untroubled world is dead, where laughter

  Was still more real than tears: and we, hereafter

  Must live with grief for our reality.

  We will return, then, not forgetfully,

  To breathe an opiate in the upland wind,

  And gain dull ease and vacant peace of mind.

  We will return, but rather there to gain

  More vital apprehension of our pain

  In memory of the dead, and of our pride

  In presence of the land for which they died:

  Beyond the lonely wood once more to lie,

  Where that remote green bastion fronts the sky;

  To see beneath us plains and woodlands wide,

  Encompassed round about and unified

  In a great flood of light: once more to press

  Our fingers in the turf’s soft friendliness,

  Fragrant with flowerets of thyme: and thence

  Shall pass into our hearts a keener sense

  Of what could those great hearts so greatly move,

  England, their hope, their faith, their passion of love.

  E. Hilton Young

  Proverbs of the Pessimists

  It’s a long lane has no turning:

  It’s never ‘too late’ to mend:

  The darkest hour is nearest the dawn,

  And even this war must end.

  SIXTEEN

  Red Tape and Rivalry

  Red tape, inter-corps rivalry, the Staff

  Writers in trench magazines derived much fun from the endless red tape – particularly that involving the Quarter Master Sergeant or ‘Q’ – from inter-corps rivalry and from mocking the Staff. Meanwhile, the much put-upon PBI – the Poor Bloody Infantry – just grumbled.

  Urgent or Ordinary

  There was a time when first I donned the Khaki –

  Oh, martial days in Brighton-by-the-Sea! –

  When not the deepest draught of Omar’s Saki

  Could fire my ardent soul like dixie tea.

  I dreamed of bloody spurs and bloodier sabre,

  Of mentions – not too modest – in despatches;

  I threw my foes, as Scotchmen toss the caber,

  And sent my prisoners home in wholesale batches;

  Led my platoons to storm the Prussian trenches,

  Galloped my guns to enfilade his flank;

  Was it H.M.’s own royal hand, or French’s

  That pinned the V.C. on my tunic? SWANK!

  Those dreams are dead: now in my Wiper’s dug-out

  I only dream of Kirchner’s naughtiest chromo;

  The brazier smokes; no window lets the fug out;

  And the Bosche shells; and ‘Q’ still issues bromo.

  ‘For information’ – ‘Urgent’ – ‘Confidential’ –

  ‘Secret’ – ‘For necessary action, please’ –

  ‘The G.O.C. considers it essential’ –

  My soldier-soul must steel itself to these;

  Must face, by dawn’s dim light, by night’s dull taper,

  Disciplined, dour, gas-helmeted, and stern,

  Brigades, battalions, batteries, of paper, –

  The loud ‘report’, the treacherous ‘return’,

  Division orders, billeting epistles,

  Barbed ‘Zeppelin’ wires that baffle G.H.Q.,

  And the dread ‘Summary’ whose blurred page bristles

  With ‘facts’ no German general ever knew.

  Let the Hun hate! We need no beer-roused passions

  To keep our sword-blade bright, our powder dry,

  The while we chase October’s o’erdrawn rations

  And hunt that missing pair of ‘Gumboots, thigh’.

  Gilbert Frankau

  Requisitional

  Or Hints to young Officers.

  (We are still struggling with the final bits of red tape. A regiment now in training at a seaside place sent a requisition for 30 pickaxes. The official reply was that the proper way to requisition pickaxes was to call them ‘Axes (Pick)’. – Daily Chronicle.)

  When sending requisitions it is well to have a care

  That you’re absolutely right in your appeal;

  ‘Wheelbarrows’ must be written – if you only want a pair

  ‘Barrows (Wheel)’.

  It’s a simple little process and, though puzzling for a bit,

  It doesn’t take so very long to think

  That an ‘inkstand’ should be designated when you order it –

  ‘Stand (Ink)’.

  Suppose you want some paper and that ‘foolscap’ is the word

  Which you want to write, remember that the rule’s

  To reverse the whole expression and you’ll put – it sounds absurd

  ‘Cap (Fools).’

  To rag the War Department you will not attempt, I hope,

  Though I quite admit it would be tempting (very)

  To ask for and to call the soldier’s friend, the periscope,

  ‘Scope (Peri).’

  W. Hodgson Burnet

  An Ode to Q.

  Listen reader, while I tell you

  Stirring deeds both old and new,

  Tales of battles during which we

  Chits received from Batt. H.Q.

  Fought we had a losing battle

  All the day and all the night;

  All communications broken,

  Never was there such a plight.

  Now the Hun comes o’er the sandbags

  In one long unbroken mass –

  Just in time – the welcome message

  ‘Indent now for helmets gas.’

  Shelled they’d been for three days solid

  In a trench just two feet high;

  Couldn’t get retaliation

  Matter not how they might try.

  Binks’s men had held the trenches,

  (Binks is NOT his proper name),

  Savagely he sent the message,

  ‘Can’t you stop their purple game?’

  Anxiously they wait the answer,

  What a brave but serried band.

  Here it comes – Binks grabs the paper,

  ‘Deficiencies not yet to hand!’

  Have you ever heard the tale, lad,

  How we took the trench at A?

  Said the good old 92nd,

  Here we are, and here we’ll stay.

  What a tale of awful trial,

  Cut off was our food supply.

  If we do not get some bully

  – Bread or biscuits – we shall die.

  The foe comes on in countless thousands

  Bearing down with savage cry.

  Jones receives a frantic message,

  ‘Indent now for gum boots thigh’.

  Thus you see, O gentle reader,

  Why the O.C. Coys are grey.

  These and other kindred worries

  Are their portion day by day.

  Our Fighting Men

  R.E.

  We all admire the Sapper,

  He is so full of brain;

  He makes the most tremendous sumps

  That keep out all the rain;

  And happy should I be if I

  Could find a dug-out half as dry.

  He works both day and night

  With fierce and furrowed brow –

  Or, rather, watches others work

  And tells them why and how;

  And, with a muffled kind of sob,

  Gives someone else the hardest job.

  R.F.A.

  The Gunner’s on a higher plane –

  His hours are 10 to 3,

  He takes a
day off when there’s rain,

  Because he cannot see.

  You find him seated on a knoll,

  Dreaming of range and fuse,

  And wishing that the Div. Amm. Col.

  Were like the widow’s cruse.

  He loves his little weekly hate,

  And once he’s fairly set,

  He rarely puts much more than eight

  Rounds through the parapet.

  Signals

  The Signal man wears blue and white

  Most gorgeous on his arm,

  And causes heaps of fun at night

  By spreading Gas Alarm.

  He bags your wire – a thing I’d hate

  To do behind your back,

  And when you gently remonstrate

  He murmurs, ‘A(c) A(c) A(c)’.

  A.S.C.

  Some men I know have billets fine

  And motor cars galore,

  They live – oh miles behind the line . . .

  The Army Service Corps.

  They often go to A——s

  To pass the time away;

  Their life must be one constant grind

  To earn their extra pay.

  Rhymes without Reason

  By P.B.I.

  Foreword

  Arise, My MUSE, and from the muddied trench

  Let us give utterance to malicious thought,

  Shouting aloud the things we never ought

  Even to dream of: come, you shameless Wench,

  With tongue in cheek let us set out to strafe

  Gunners and Sappers, and the Gilded Staff.

  I

  Gunners are a race apart,

  Hard of head and hard of heart.

  Like the gods they sit and view

  All that other people do:

  Like the Sisters Three of Fate,

  They do not discriminate.

  Our Support Line, or the Hun’s,

  – What’s the difference to the Guns?

  Retaliation do you seek?

  Ring them up, and – wait a week!

  They will certainly reply

  In the distant by-and-bye.

  Should a shell explode amiss

  Each will swear it was not his:

  For he’s never, never shot

  Anywhere about that spot,

  And, what’s more, his Guns could not.

  II

  Sappers are wonderfully clever by birth,

  And though they’re not meek, they inherit the Earth.