Hello, Soldier! | Page 7

blood.?Weepin' Willie wouldn't have it these was
pleasin' things abed,?'N' he shuddered in his shimmy if they passed
him with the dead.?When he cried about his mother, in a gentle
voice he'd tell?Them as dumb-well didn't like it they could go
to sudden 'ell.
There was nothin' sweet for Willie in a roughup
in the wet;?But if all things scared him purple, not a thing
had stopped him yet.?If some chaps was wanted urgent special dirty
work to do?Willie went in with a shudder, but he alwiz
saw it through.?Oh, a busy little body was our Willie in a
crush!?Then he'd cry out in the night about the faces
in the slush.
Well they pinked him one fine mornin' with
a thumpin' 'unk iv shell;?Put it in 'n' all across him. What he was
you couldn't tell.?I saw him stitched 'n' mended where he
whimpered in his bed,?'N' he'd on'y lived because he was afraid to
die, he said.?Sez he "Struth, they're out there fightin',
trimmin' Boshes good 'n' smart,?While I'm bedded here 'n' 'elpless. It fair
breaks a feller's 'eart."
But he came again last Tuesday '-n' we go it
in a breath--?"London's big 'n' black 'n' noisy. It would
scare a bloke to death."?He's away now in the trenches, white 'n'
nervous, but, you bet,?Playin' lovely 'ands of poker with his busy
bay-o-net,?'Fraid of givin' 'n' of takin', 'fraid of gases,
'fraid of guns--?But a champion lightweight terror to the gorforsaken
'Uns!
BILLJIM
DOWN to it is Plugger Bill,?Lyin' crumpled, white 'n' still.
Me 'n' him?Chips in when the scrap begins,?Carin' nothin' for our skins,?Chi-iked as the 'Eavenly TwinsBill
'n' Jim.
They 'ave outed Bill at last,?Slugged me cobber hard 'n' fast.
It's a kill.?See the purple of his lip?'N' the red 'n' oozy drip!?Ends our great ole partnershipJim
'n' Bill
Mates we was when we was kids;?Camp, 'n' ship, 'n' Pyramids,
Him 'n' me?Hung together, 'n' we tore?Up the heights from Helles shore,?Bill a long 'arf head afore,
Fine to see!
Then it was we took a touchSimple?puncture, nothin' much;
But we lay?'N' we stays the count, it seems,?In a sorter realm of dreams?Where the sun infernal gleams
Night 'n' day;
Boilin', fryin' achin', dumb,?Waitin' till the stretchers come,
Patiently.?I hangs on to 'arf a cup.?Which I wants ole Bill to sup.?Damn if he ain't savin' up
His for me!
When they come to lift my head?I am softly kiddin' dead,
For a game,?So's they'll first take on his gills.?Over, though, me scheme he spillsBli'?me, this ole take-down Bill's
Done the same!
But he isn't kiddin' now,?And it knocks me anyhow
Seein' him.?We was both agreed before,?Though it got 'em by the score,?Two was goin' to beat this warBut
'n' Jim.
Mate o' mine, yiv stayed it through.?Hard luck, Bill-for me 'n' you
Hard 'n' grim.?They have got me Cobber true,?But I'm stickin' tight ez glue....?Bill, there's one who'll plug for twoIt
is Jim!
THE CRUSADERS.
WHAT price yer humble, Dicko Smith,
in gaudy putties girt,?With sand-blight in his optics, and much
leaner than he started,?Round the 'Oly Land cavorting in threequarters
of a shirt,?And imposin' on the natives ez one Dick
the Lion 'Earted?
We are drivin' out the infidel, we're hittin'
up the Turk,?Same ez Richard slung his right across the
Saracen invader?In old days of which I'm readin'. Now
we're gettin' in our work,?'N' what price me nibs, I ask yeh, ez a
qualified Crusader!
'Ere I am, a thirsty Templar in the fields of
Palestine,?Where that hefty little fighter, Bobby
Sable, smit the heathen,?And where Richard Coor de Lion trimmed
the Moslem good 'n' fine,?'N' he took the belt from Saladin, the
slickest Dago breathin'.
There's no plume upon me helmet, 'n' no red
cross on me chest,?'N' so fur they haven't dressed me in a
swanking load of metal;?We've no 'Oly Grail I know of, but we do
our little best?With a jamtin, 'n' a billy, 'n' a battered
ole mess kettle.
Quite a lot of guyver missin' from our brand
of chivalry;?We don't make a pert procession when
we're movin' up the forces;?We've no pretty, pawin' stallion, 'n' no
pennants flowin' free,?'N' no giddy, gaudy bedquilts make a
circus of the 'orses.
We 'most always slip the cattle 'n' we cut out
all the dog?When it fairly comes to buttin' into battle's
hectic fever,?Goin' forward on our wishbones, with our
noses in the bog,?'N' we 'eave a pot iv blazes at the cursed
unbeliever.
Fancy-dress them old Crusaders wore,
and alwiz kep' a band.?What we wear's so near to nothin' that it's
often 'ardly proper,?And we swings a tank iv iron scrap across
the 'Oly Land?From a dinkie gun we nipped ashore the
other side of Jopper.
We ain't ever very natty, for the climate here
is hot;?When it isn't liquid mud the dust is thicker
than the vermin.?Ten to one our bold Noureddin is some waddlin'
Turkish pot,?'N' the Saladin we're on to is a snortin'
red-eyed German.
But be'old the eighth Crusade, 'n' Dicko
Smith is in the van,?Dicko Coor de Lion from Carlton what
could teach King Dick a trifle,?For he'd bomb his Royal Jills from out his
baked-pertater can,?Or he'd pink him full of leakage with a
quaint repeatin' rif1e.
We have sunk our claws in Mizpah, and
Siloam is in view.?By my 'alidom from Agra we will send the
Faithful reelin'!?Those old-timers botched the contract,