Hello, Soldier! | Page 5

was somethin' fierce. Poor Son
was blowin' blood 'n' foam,?"Fill up," he coughs, "'n' plug 'em! S'elp
me Gord, we're goin' 'ome!"
With bricks we drove right at 'em 'n' we
wanged 'em best we could.?'Twas either bed 'n' breakfast or a scribble
and a wreath.?Haynes bust a Prussian's almond, took the
bay'net where he stood,?Then heaved his last 'arf-Brunswick, split
the demon's grinnin' teeth,?And Son went down in glory, with a German
underneath!
We'd started out with gibbers in our clobber
and our 'ats.?They gave us floatin' lead enough to stop an
army cor.?We yelled like fiends, 'n' countered with a
lovely flight of bats,?Then rushed in close formation, heavin' cottages,
n' tore?Through blinded, bleedin' Bosches, 'n' lor
love yeh, it was war!
We came peltin', headfirst, 'elpless, in a drain
among a lot?Of dirty, damned old Tommies (Gord! The
best that ever blew!)?Eight left of us, all punctured, each man
holdin' what he'd got.?Me wild, a rat hole in me lung, but in me
mauley, too,?A bull-nosed brick with whiskers where no
whiskers ever grew.
There's nothin' doin' now. I wear me blankets
like a toff.?The way this fat nurse pets me, strewth, it's
well to be so sick,?A-dreamin' of our contract 'n' the way we
pulled it off.?I reckon Haig is phonin' Hughes: "Hullo,
there, Billy. Quick--?A dozen of the pushes and a thousan' tons
of brick!"
MUD.
THIS war's a waste of slurry, and its atmosphere
is mud,?All is bog from here to sunset. Wadin'?through?We're the victims of a thicker sort of universal
flood,?With discomforts that old Noah never knew.
We have dubbed our trench The Cecil.
There's a brass-plate and a dome,?And a quagmire where the doormat used?to be,?If you're calling, second Tuesday is our reg'-
lar day at home,?So delighted if you'll toddle in to tea!
There is mud along the corridors enough to
bog a cow;?In the air there hangs a musty kind of?woof;?There's a frog-pond in the parlour, and the
kitchen is a slough.?She has neither doors nor windows, nor a?roof.
When they post our bald somnambulist as
missing from his flat?We take soundings for the digger with a
prop.?By the day the board is gratis, by the week
it's half of that;?For the season there's a corresponding drop.
Opening off the spacious hallway is my natty
little suite,?A commodious and accessible abode.?By judicious disposition, with exclusion of
my feet,?There is sleeping room for Oliver the toad.
Though the ventilation's gusty, and in gobs
the ceiling falls--?Which with oral respiration disagrees--?Though there comes a certain quantity of
seepage from the walls,?There are some I knew in diggings worse?than these.
On my right is Cobber Carkeek. There's a
spring above his head,?And his mattress is a special kind of clay.?He's a most punctilious bloke about the
fashion of his bed,?And he makes it with a shovel every day.
Man is dust. If so, the Cobber has been
puddled up a treat.?On domestic sanitation he's a toff,?For he lights a fire on Sunday, bakes his surface
in the heat,?Then he takes a little maul, and cracks it?off.
After hanging out a winter in this Cimmerian
hole?We're forgetting sheets, and baths, and?tidy skins.?In the dark and deadly calm last night they
took us on patrol.?Seven, little fellows, thinking of their sins.
It was ours like blinded snails to prowl the
soggy, slimy night,?With a feeler pricking out at every pore?For the death that stalks in darkness, or the
blinking stab of light,?And the other trifling matters that are war.
That's the stuff to get your liver, that's the
acid on a man,?For it tries his hones, and seeks his marrow?throngh.?You have got the thought to comfort you that
life is but a span,?If Fritz squirts his loathly limelight over?you.
We got back again at daybreak. Cobber
ducked to doss and said,?From the soft, embracing mud: "No more?I'll roam.?"Oh, thank Heaven, blokes," he murmured,
"for the comforts of a bed!?Gorstruth, but ain't it good to have a?home!"
MICKIE MOLLYNOO.
A MILE-LONG panto dragon ploddin'
'opeless all the day,?Stuffed out with kits, 'n' spiked with rifles,
steamin' in its sweat,?A-heavin' down the misty road, club-footed
through the clay,?By waggons bogged 'n' buckin' guns,
the wildest welter yet,?Like 'arf creation's tenants shiftin' early
in the wet.
We're marchin' out, we dunno where, to meet
we dunno who;?But here we lights eventual, 'n' sighs 'n'
slips the kit,?'N', 'struth, the first to take us on is Mickie
Mollynoo!?A copper of the Port he was, when 'istory
was writ.?Sez I : "We're sent to face the foe, 'n', selp
me, this is It."
A shine John. Hop is Mollynoo. A mix-up
with the push?Is all his joy. One evenin' when his
baton's flyin' free?I takes a baby brick, 'n' drives it hard agin
the cush,?'N' Privit Mick is scattered out fer all the
world to see,?But not afore indelible he's put his mark on
me.
I got the signs Masonic all inlaid along me
lug?Where Molly, P.C., swiped me in them
'appy, careless days.?He's sargin' now, a vet'ran; I'm a newchum
and a mug,?'N' when he sorter fixes me there's somethin'
in his gaze?That's pensive like. "Move on!" sez he.
"Keep movin' there!" he says.
If after this I dreams of scraps promiscuous
and crool,?The mills in Butcher's Alley when the
watch is on the wine,?Those nights he raided Wylie's shed to