Voices of Silence

by Vivien Noakes

  Should your trenches prove leaky, they’ll work with a will

  To make all the water flow up the next hill.

  (And when I say ‘work’, I should really explain

  That we find the Labour, while they find the Brain.)

  They build nice, deep dug-outs as quick as can be,

  But quicker still mark them ‘RESERVED FOR R.E.’:

  And, strangely, this speed of theirs seems to decline

  As the scene of their labours draws near the Front Line.

  III

  Realising Men must laugh,

  Some Wise Men devised the Staff:

  Dressed them up in little dabs

  Of rich variegated tabs:

  Taught them how to win the War

  On A.F.Z. 354:

  Let them lead the Simple Life

  Far from all our vulgar strife:

  Nightly gave them downy beds

  For their weary, aching heads:

  Lest their relatives might grieve

  Often, often gave them leave,

  Decorations, too, galore:

  What on earth could man wish more?

  Yet, alas, or so says Rumour,

  He forgot a sense of Humour!

  Afterword

  And now, Old Girl, we’ve fairly had our whack,

  Be off, before they start to strafe us back!

  Come, let us plod across the weary Plain,

  Until we sight TENTH AVENUE again:

  On, up the interminable C.T.,

  Watched by the greater part of Germany:

  And, as we go, mark each familiar spot

  Where fresh work has been done – or p’r’aps not:

  On, past the footboards no one seems to mend,

  Till even VENDIN ALLEY finds an end,

  And wading through a Minnie-hole (brand-new),

  We gingerly descend to C.H.Q.,

  Our journey ended in a Rabbit-hutch –

  ‘How goes the Battle? Have they Minnied much?’

  Professional Jealousy

  By a Gloster

  God made the bees,

  The bees make the honey;

  The Glosters do the work

  And the R.E.s get the money.

  The Sapper’s Reply

  Who eats the honey,

  Is it Glosters or the bee?

  The bee gets no cash

  From the bally infantry.

  Who pinches sandbags

  Required for parapet,

  Drops them in the mud

  To save his feet from wet?

  When dugout, sap or bridge

  Is required by infantry,

  The Gloster bends his knee

  To the better paid R.E.

  Who taught him how to bomb,

  Revet and to demolish,

  To build a house or knock it down,

  The Germans for to dish?

  Why should the Gloster grouse

  At the R.E. and his pay?

  When the Glosters wants to know a thing

  The R.E. shows the way.

  The Infantryman

  The gunner rides on horseback, he lives in luxury,

  The sapper has his dug-out as cushy as can be,

  The flying man’s a sportsman, but his home’s a long way back,

  In painted tent or straw-spread barn or cosy little shack;

  Gunner and sapper and flying man (and each to his job, say I)

  Have tickled the Hun with mine or gun or bombed him from on high,

  But the quiet work, and the dirty work, since ever the War began

  Is the work that never shows at all, the work of the infantryman.

  The guns can pound the villages and smash the trenches in,

  And the Hun is fain for home again when the T.M.B.s begin,

  And the Vickers gun is a useful one to sweep a parapet,

  But the real work is the work that’s done with bomb and bayonet.

  Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub and kit,

  He’s always there where the fighting is – he’s there unless he’s hit;

  Over the mud and the blasted earth he goes where the living can;

  He’s in at the death while he yet has breath, the British infantryman!

  Trudge and slip on the shell-hole’s lip, and fall in the clinging mire –

  Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!

  Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump clear!

  Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! and duck when the shells come near!

  Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench,

  With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden khaki’s stench!

  Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can –

  This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.

  E.F. Clarke

  Ballad of Army Pay

  In general, if you want a man to do a dangerous job: –

  Say, swim the Channel, climb St Paul’s, or break into and rob

  The Bank of England, why, you find his wages must be higher

  Than if you merely wanted him to light the kitchen fire.

  But in the British Army, it’s just the other way,

  And the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.

  You put some men inside a trench, and call them infantrie,

  And make them face ten kinds of hell, and face it cheerfully;

  And live in holes like rats, with other rats, and lice, and toads,

  And in their leisure time, assist the R.E.s with their loads.

  Then, when they’ve done it all, you give ’em each a bob a day!

  For the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.

  We won’t run down the A.S.C., nor yet the R.T.O.,

  They ration and direct us on the way we’ve got to go.

  They’re very useful people, and it’s pretty plain to see

  We couldn’t do without ’em, nor yet the A.P.C.,

  But comparing risks and wages, – I think they all will say

  That the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.

  There are men who make munitions – and seventy bob a week;

  They never see a lousy trench nor hear a big shell shriek;

  And others sing about the war at high-class music-halls

  Getting heaps and heaps of money and encores from the stalls.

  They ‘keep the home fires burning’ and bright by night and day,

  While the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.

  I wonder if it’s harder to make big shells at a bench,

  Than to face the screaming beggars when they’re crumping up a trench;

  I wonder if it’s harder to sing in mellow tones

  Of danger, than to face it – say, in a wood like Trones;

  Is discipline skilled labour, or something children play?

  Should the maximum of danger mean the minimum of pay?

  F.W. Harvey

  To the P.B.I.

  An appreciation

  Gone is the Summer, and gone are the flies,

  Gone the green hedges that gladdened our eyes;

  Around us the landscape is reeking with rain,

  Gone is all comfort – ’tis Winter again.

  So here’s to the lads of the P.B.I.,

  Who live in a ditch that never is dry;

  Who grin through discomfort and danger alike,

  Go ‘over the top’ when a chance comes to strike;

  Though they’re living in Hell they are cheery and gay,

  And draw as their stipend just one bob per day.

  Back once more to the boots, gum, thigh,

  In a pulverised trench where the mud’s knee-high;

  To the duck-board slide on a cold wet night,

  When you pray for a star-shell to give you light;

  When your clothes are wet, and the rum jar’s dry,

  Then
you want all your cheeriness, P.B.I.

  They take what may come with a grouse just skin-deep,

  In a rat-worried dug-out on mud try to sleep;

  Do you wonder they make all the atmosphere hum,

  When some arm-chair old lunatic grudges them rum;

  And they read in the papers that ‘James So-and-Such

  Thinks that our soldiers are drinking too much’.

  Leave the Tommy alone Mr James So-and-Such.

  There are vices much nearer home waiting your touch;

  Take yourself now for instance, examine and see

  If your own priggish virtue is all it should be;

  Give those of a larger life chance to enjoy

  A charity wider than that you employ.

  Don’t let Tommy’s vices shatter your sleep,

  When you write to the ‘Times’ stick to ‘Little Bo-Peep’,

  As a subject she’s really much more in your line

  Than licentious soldiery, women, and wine.

  So here’s to the lads who can live and can die,

  Backbone of the Empire, the old P.B.I.

  Arma Virumque Cano

  No Prayers of Peace for me; no maiden’s sigh.

  Give me the Chants of War, the Viking’s Song;

  Battle for me; nor care I for how long

  This war goes on. Tell me, where bullets fly;

  Where noble men and brave may bleed and die;

  Where skilful parry foils the sword-thrust strong.

  Such are the tales I love. (I may be wrong –

  A warrior, and no carpet knight am I.)

  The D.S.O., the M.C. grace my breast;

  My brow is bound with laurels and with lace;

  I love this war. Perhaps you think that that

  Is strange. Well I am different from the rest

  Of you poor blighters. I live at the Base,

  And use the Brain inside my nice, red, hat.

  To James

  (On his appointment to the Staff.)

  It does not make me laugh and whoop

  (Though certainly the choice is droll)

  To hear that you are asked to stoop

  To join that great malignant group;

  I hasten to condole.

  Not for your frame I fear – ah, no,

  For, far as creature comforts go,

  They lack but little here below:

  I shudder for your soul.

  I know that when the seas are rude

  And people’s parcels long delayed,

  No hint of trouble shall intrude

  Where your select and frequent food

  Is delicately laid;

  That, though the sweet Imbrosial hens

  Abruptly perish in their pens,

  Your eggs will not, like other men’s,

  Be absent on parade.

  I know the neighbourhood is rich

  In sandbagged shelters, cutely packed,

  Yet if there be some special niche,

  The perfect kind of cranny which

  We hitherto have lacked,

  Where man may shun the shells of man

  (And also Asiatic Anne),

  ’Twill be but part of some huge plan

  For keeping you intact.

  I fear for you no foeman’s knife,

  But fear to see on that fresh face

  The lofty look of one whose life

  Is quite remote from earthly strife

  (Though that will be the case);

  I dread the perilous abyss

  Of being sui generis,

  And looking with some prejudice

  On any other race.

  I fear, yet hope, that after all,

  If e’er you tread, supremely vast,

  The lowly drain wherein we crawl,

  You’ll have the kindness to recall

  Some fragment of the past;

  For some wee while confess the sin

  Of merely earthly origin,

  And not refuse a genial grin

  For fear of losing caste.

  A.P. Herbert

  The Sacred Documents

  Major Augustus Edward Grace

  Was D.A.A.G. Corps,

  And kept the Sacred Documents

  In pigeon-holes galore,

  And knew that on his shoulders lay

  The burden of the war.

  No officer on all the Staff

  Was diligent as he;

  ’Twas but a little fault he had

  That caused the tragedy.

  A trifle absent-minded Grace

  Was sometimes apt to be.

  One morning – I remember well,

  The day was wild and wet –

  (The horror of that dreadful time!

  It makes me tremble yet) –

  With ‘A oblique stroke four five two’

  Grace lit his cigarette!

  That evening from the Army came

  A note for Major Grace;

  ‘Ref. A oblique stroke four five two,

  Line three, delete “his face”.’

  But ‘A oblique stroke four five two’

  Had vanished into space!

  We sought the Sacred Document

  Through half a hundred files,

  At first with natural confidence

  And deprecating smiles,

  Like cats that for the first time tread

  The dim nocturnal tiles.

  But when we sought, and sought in vain,

  Slowly a nameless dread

  Began to seize us, and the hairs

  Stood up upon each head

  As in each other’s startled eyes

  The dreadful thought we read.

  The Sacred Document was lost!

  We heard the furies mock,

  The D.A.A. and Q.M.G.

  In secret sold his stock.

  And when the Corps Commander knew

  He fainted with the shock.

  That night, when in our beds we lay,

  We saw – as in a trance –

  A Britain humbled to the dust,

  A dominated France.

  But ah! for human vanity

  Beneath the light of chance!

  A bomb was dropped at dawn and left

  The offices a wreck,

  And of the Sacred Documents

  Was found no single speck.

  And yet – and Yet – and YET the war

  Went on without a check!

  Edward de Stein

  Headquarters

  A league and a league from the trenches – from the traversed maze of the lines,

  Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines,

  And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines –

  Here, where haply some woman dreamed, (are those her roses that bloom

  In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working-room?)

  We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.

  Fair, on each lettered numbered square – cross-road and mound and wire,

  Loophole, redoubt and emplacement – lie the targets their mouths desire;

  Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.

  And ever the type-keys clatter; and ever our keen wires bring

  Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing;

  And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns thundering.

  Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench-lines crawl,

  Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel’s fall –

  Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.

  For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close . . . There is scarcely a leaf astir

  In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur

  The blaze of some woman’s roses . . .

  ‘Bombardment orders, sir.’

  Gilbert
Frankau

  A Staff Captain’s Lament

  ’Twas near the close of ‘Z’ day

  When a lull fell o’er the fight,

  The strain on the Staff had been great all day

  But was greater still that night.

  ‘Beer Emma’ sat wearily marking

  Fresh colours on his map,

  While the G.O.C. and Signals

  Took a surreptitious nap.

  The whole Red Line was captured,

  And most of the Green Line too,

  And the points where the Boche still lingered

  Had now to be marked in Blue.

  Fresh lines of Black and Yellow

  Now started to appear,

  Shewing still further objectives

  In the open ground in rear.

  A certain grim elation

  ‘Beer Emma’ could scarce restrain,

  For the Brigade had been advancing

  And would soon advance again.

  First; to clear the blue bit

  He’d need a Tank or two,

  With a score or so of bombers

  To see the thing go through.

  Then on to the new objectives

  One regiment for each,

  With the others to bring assistance

  At the points which the first can’t reach.

  The ‘Esses C’ worked sadly,

  No gleam of elation here,

  For the work of a mere Staff Captain –

  Well, it isn’t all skittles and beer.

  All his water’s expended,

  None of his rations remain,

  And the dumps he’s already moved forward

  Will have to move forward again.

  It’s far enough to the Red Line;

  It’s further still to the Green,

  And he’s jolly well got to dump there

  Though there’s no sort of road between.

  The bombers will need ammunition,

  The throats of the men will be dry,

  There are tracks where a mule can’t be taken,

  Tho’ God knows the fellows will try.

  And mixed with the dump calculations

  In the wretched Staff Captain’s head,

  There’s the daily return of the wounded,