Voices of Silence

  Dawn after weary dawn I start

  The never-ending round of penance;

  One rock amid the welter stands

  On which my gaze is fixed intently –

  An after-life in quiet lands

  Lived very lazily and gently.

  When the War is over and we’ve done the Belgians proud,

  I’m going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud;

  When the War is over and we’ve finished up the show,

  I’m going to plant a lemon-pip and listen to it grow.

  Oh, I’m tired of the noise and the turmoil of battle,

  And I’m even upset by the lowing of cattle,

  And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver,

  And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver,

  And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting,

  And I’m nervous, when standing on one, of alighting –

  Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek . . .

  Say, starting on Saturday week.

  A.A. Milne

  The General*

  Last night, as I was washing up,

  And just had rinsed the final cup,

  All of a sudden, ’midst the steam,

  I fell asleep and dreamed a dream.

  I saw myself an old, old man,

  Nearing the end of mortal span,

  Bent, bald and toothless, lean and spare,

  Hunched in an ancient beehive chair.

  Before me stood a little lad

  Alive with questions. ‘Please, Granddad,

  Did Daddy fight, and Uncle Joe,

  In the Great War of long ago?’

  I nodded as I made reply:

  ‘Your Dad was in the H.L.I.,

  And Uncle Joseph sailed to sea,

  Commander of a T.B.D.,

  * A General was also a general cook-housekeeper.

  And Uncle Jack was Major too ——’

  ‘And what’, he asked me, ‘what were you?’

  I stroked the little golden head;

  ‘I was a General,’ I said.

  ‘Come, and I’ll tell you something more

  Of what I did in the Great War.’

  At once the wonder-waiting eyes

  Were opened in a mild surmise;

  Smiling, I helped the little man

  To mount my knee, and so began:

  ‘When first the War broke out, you see,

  Grandma became a V.A.D.;

  Your Aunties spent laborious days

  In working at Y.M.C.A.’s;

  The servants vanished. Cook was found

  Doing the conscript baker’s round;

  The housemaid, Jane, in shortened skirt

  (She always was a brazen flirt),

  Forsook her dusters, brooms and pails

  To carry on with endless mails.

  The parlourmaid became a vet.,

  The tweeny a conductorette,

  And both the others found their missions

  In manufacturing munitions.

  I was a City man. I knew

  No useful trade. What could I do?

  Your Granddad, boy, was not the sort

  To yield to fate, he was a sport.

  I set to work; I rose at six,

  Summer and winter; chopped the sticks,

  Kindled the fire, made early tea

  For Aunties and the V.A.D.

  I cooked the porridge, eggs and ham,

  Set out the marmalade and jam,

  And packed the workers off, well fed,

  Well warmed, well brushed, well valeted.

  I spent the morning in a rush

  With dustpan, pail and scrubbing-brush;

  Then with a string-bag sallied out

  To net the cabbage or the sprout,

  Or in the neighbouring butcher’s shop

  Select the juiciest steak or chop.

  So when the sun had sought the West,

  And brought my toilers home to rest,

  Savours more sweet than scent of roses

  Greeted their eager-sniffing noses –

  Savours of dishes most divine

  Prepare and cooked by skill of mine.

  I was a General. Now you know

  How Generals helped to down the foe.’

  The little chap slipped off my knee

  And gazed in solemn awe at me,

  Stood at attention, stiff and mute,

  And gave his very best salute.

  G.K. Menzies

  Herr Hohenzollern

  (The papers announce that the KAISER wishes in future to be known simply as a private gentleman.)

  Says WILLIAM: ‘Time has made of me

  A sadder man and wiser;

  Henceforth my object is to be

  No more the German Kaiser,

  But just a private gentleman.’

  Ah, WILLIAM, vain endeavour,

  ‘Private?’ As private as you can.

  But ‘gentleman?’ No, never.

  In Memory of Kaiser Bill (The Butcher)

  Who lost his Crown, November 9th 1918 Aged 59 years.

  Oh! how we shall miss him

  The villain was known so well.

  He’s booked his seat for Early Doors

  To the warmest place in Hell!

  C. Clifford

  Cousins German

  Our family affairs seem rather bad.

  There’s Cousin William: all the papers say

  He’s to be hanged or somehow put away;

  And Cousin Constantine they say’s as bad;

  And now – these awful things in Petrograd!

  Poor Cousin Nicholas has lost his job,

  Kicked from his palace by a vulgar mob,

  And everybody here seems strangely glad.

  It makes one anxious: not so long ago

  His people were as loyal as mine to me.

  Now suddenly they turn and bid him go,

  Saying they have no use for royalty.

  The English once before grew sick of kings.

  What if —— Enough of such unpleasant things.

  W.N. Ewer

  TWENTY

  Armistice and the Price of War

  Joy and sadness, the survivors, reconciliation and hatred, the return of the dead and the grief of the living, victory celebrations, the Peace Treaty, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, war memorials, In Memoriam

  As the news of the armistice was received, crowds gathered to celebrate the end of the fighting. For many it was too late; relief was overborne by the grief of their loss. While some urged reconciliation, others had suffered too much to be willing to forget. And the dead seemed ever present; it was said that if they were to march four abreast, twenty-four hours a day, it would take them more than a week to pass a single point.

  It took a long time for demobilisation to be completed, and many returning soldiers found it impossible to settle. They were physically and mentally exhausted, and needed time to come to terms not only with what they had experienced, but also with the new life they faced in a nation in mourning for those who would never return. Many had gone straight from school to war, and had never known peace as adults. The promises of ‘a land fit for heroes’ soon rang hollow. Many at home had grown rich while others were fighting and dying for the freedom they now enjoyed, but there was high unemployment among ex-soldiers and a growing sense of disillusionment and resentment against those who seemed unable or unwilling to understand what they had suffered.

  The Treaty of Versailles, signalling a formal end to the war, was signed on 28 June 1919. Three weeks later there was a Victory March through the streets of London. At 11 a.m. on the anniversary of the armistice, 11 November, all traffic was stilled and the people fell silent as they paused to remember. Work was already underway all over the country to build memorials – though many believed that such memorials were meaningless and an insult to those who had died. Sir Edwin Lutyens designed an empty tomb – a cenotaph – commemorating all the dead o
f the war. This was unveiled in Whitehall on 11 November 1920, on the same day that the body of an unknown warrior was buried in Westminster Abbey.

  In the days immediately before, the bodies of six unknown soldiers had been exhumed from the battlefields of the Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres and brought to an army hut close to Arras. Here they were laid side by side, covered with Union Flags. A Brigadier General and Lieutenant Colonel from the Directorate of War Grave Registration went alone into the chapel, where the General, with closed eyes, placed his outstretched hand on one of the bodies. This was then sealed in a coffin, which was taken at once to Boulogne and placed inside a second, oak coffin made from a tree felled at Hampton Court. On 10 November a company of French infantry kept guard over the body in the chapel of Boulogne Castle, before it was taken, under French escort, to board the British destroyer, HMS Verdun, for its passage across the Channel; the ship’s bell now hangs near the grave in the Abbey. With an escort of six other destroyers, it was met midway by HMS Vendetta, flying a white ensign at half-mast. As they came in to Dover, a field-marshal’s salute of nineteen guns was sounded from the ramparts of Dover Castle.

  On the morning of 11 November, the coffin was placed on a gun-carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery and taken past huge, silent crowds to Whitehall, where the King unveiled the Cenotaph. From there the cortège travelled to the North Door of Westminster Abbey. Here twelve pall bearers – admirals, field-marshals, generals and an air marshal – carried the coffin past a guard of honour of 100 holders of the Victoria Cross to be interred just inside the West Door. The grave was filled with 100 sandbags of earth brought from the battlefields, and was then covered with a marble slab and surrounded by Flanders poppies. The inscription read in part: ‘Beneath this stone rests the body of a British warrior unknown by name or rank brought from France to lie among the most illustrious of the land . . . They buried him among the Kings.’ Since then, even the most formal State procession entering the Abbey must step to one side to avoid walking on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

  The Armistice

  In an Office, in Paris

  The news came through over the telephone:

  All the terms had been signed: the War was won:

  And all the fighting and the agony,

  And all the labour of the years were done.

  One girl clicked sudden at her typewriter

  And whispered, ‘Jerry’s safe’, and sat and stared:

  One said, ‘It’s over, over, it’s the end:

  The War is over: ended’: and a third,

  ‘I can’t remember life without the war’.

  And one came in and said, ‘Look here, they say

  We can all go at five to celebrate,

  As long as two stay on, just for to-day’.

  It was quiet in the big empty room

  Among the typewriters and little piles

  Of index cards: one said, ‘We’d better just

  Finish the day’s reports and do the files’.

  And said, ‘It’s awf’lly like Recessional,

  Now that the tumult has all died away’.

  The other said, ‘Thank God we saw it through;

  I wonder what they’ll do at home to-day’.

  And said, ‘You know it will be quiet to-night

  Up at the Front: first time in all these years,

  And no one will be killed there any more’,

  And stopped, to hide her tears.

  She said, ‘I’ve told you; he was killed in June’.

  The other said, ‘My dear, I know; I know . . .

  It’s over for me too . . . my Man was killed,

  Wounded . . . and died . . . at Ypres . . . three years ago . . .

  And he’s my Man, and I want him,’ she said,

  And knew that peace could not give back her Dead.

  May Cannan

  Bacchanal

  (November, 1918)

  Into the twilight of Trafalgar Square

  They pour from every quarter, banging drums

  And tootling penny trumpets – to a blare

  Of tin mouth-organs, while a sailor strums

  A solitary banjo, lads and girls

  Locked in embraces, in a wild dishevel

  Of flags and streaming hair, with curdling skirls

  Surge in a frenzied, reeling, panic revel.

  Lads who so long have looked death in the face,

  Girls who so long have tended death’s machines,

  Released from the long terror shriek and prance:

  And watching them, I see the outrageous dance,

  The frantic torches and the tambourines

  Tumultuous on the midnight hills of Thrace.

  Wilfrid W. Gibson

  For a Girl

  Paris, November 11 1918

  Go cheering down the boulevards

  And shout and wave your flags,

  Go dancing down the boulevards

  In all your gladdest rags:

  And raise your cheers and wave your flags

  And kiss the passer-by,

  But let me break my heart in peace

  For all the best men die.

  It was ‘When the War is over

  Our dreams will all come true,

  When the War is over

  I’ll come back to you’;

  And the War is over, over,

  And they never can come true.

  Go cheering down the boulevards

  In all your brave array,

  Go singing down the boulevards

  To celebrate the day:

  But for God’s sake let me stay at home

  And break my heart and cry,

  I’ve loved and worked, and I’ll be glad,

  But all the best men die.

  It was ‘When the War is over

  Our dreams will all come true,

  When the War is over

  I’ll come back to you’;

  And the War is over, over,

  And they never can come true.

  May Cannan

  Tears

  Silence o’erwhelms the melody of Night,

  Then slowly drips on to the woods that sigh

  For their past vivid vernal ecstasy.

  The branches and the leaves let in the light

  In patterns, woven ’gainst the paler sky

  – Create mysterious Gothic tracery,

  Between those high dark pillars, – that affright

  Poor weary mortals who are wand’ring by.

  * * *

  Silence drips on the woods like sad faint rain,

  Making each frail tired sigh, a sob of pain:

  Each drop that falls, a hollow painted tear

  Such as are shed by Pierrots, when they fear

  Black clouds may crush their silver lord to death.

  The world is waxen; and the wind’s least breath

  Would make a hurricane of sound. The earth

  Smells of the hoarded sunlight that gave birth

  To the gold-glowing radiance of that leaf,

  Which falls to bury from our sight its grief.

  Osbert Sitwell

  Victory

  Who are ye that come with eyes red and weeping

  In a long, long line and silent every one?

  See overhead the flag of triumph sweeping –

  ‘We are the mothers, and each has lost a son.’

  Cries of the crowd who greet their god of glory!

  What of these who crouch there silent in the street? –

  ‘We are outraged women – ’tis a common story,

  Quietly we lie beneath your armies’ feet.’

  Red flags of conquest, banners great and golden! –

  Who are these silent ones upon our track?

  ‘We in our thousands, perished unbeholden,

  We are the women: pray you, look not back.’

  Margaret Sackville

  To an Only Son

  ‘For we brought nothing into this world,


  And it is certain that we can carry nothing out.’

  ‘They bring their love with them.’ Old saying.

  When first you came

  You were so weak, so helpless, and so bare

  In this great world

  You had so small a share,

  But you brought Love with you, and all our fears

  Have changed to hopes through the long, happy years.

  And now you go

  Back to th’ Eternal Love Who sent you here,

  You take with you

  All that we hold most dear,

  Your love for us – now grown so large a thing,

  And ours for you, past all imagining.

  A little while

  Without your living presence we must stay –

  The love you brought

  Death cannot take away,

  Still living – still our own, Love cannot die!

  The proof, the pledge of Immortality!

  The Return

  Last night, within our little town,

  The Dead came marching through;

  In a long line, like living men,

  Just as they used to do.

  Only, so long a line it seemed

  You’d think the Judgment Day

  Had dawned, to see them slowly pass,

  With faces turned one way.

  They walked no longer foe and foe

  But brother bound to brother;

  Poor men, common men they walked

  Friendly to one another.

  Just as in life they might have done

  Who stabbed and slew instead . . .

  So quietly and evenly they walked

  These million gentle dead.

  Margaret Sackville

  Peace – The Dead Speak

  Rondeau

  Will ye forget now all is done,

  And men may bear to feel the sun,

  Nor see that friendly face with dread

  To guess the friends who will be dead

  Ere all his golden sand has run

  To heap a sunset – since nor gun

  Nor bomb tells now to any one

  The thing wherefor our blood was shed . . .

  Will ye forget?

  We died (whatever lie be spun)

  Less for ‘old England’ than, each one,

  For the New England which shall shed

  Her sorrows, walking diamonded