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!
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,