Hello, Soldier! | Page 4

curls 'n' he's fair 'n' slim).
Well, I mind the days in the
Port when we
Puts it over Hugh coz we don't agree
With his tone 'n'
style, 'n' my foot was free
When the push made a hack of him.
Now he's paid me back. I had struck a snag,
And must creep through the battle spume
All a flamin' age, with a
grinnin' jag
In me thigh, for water, or jest a fag.
Like a crippled
snake I was forced to drag

Shattered flesh till the crack of doom.
When they saw me he was the one who came.
'N' he give me a raffish grin
'N' a swig. I wasn't so bad that shame

Didn't get me then, for the lad was lame.
They had passed him his,
but his 'art was
game.
'N' he coughed ez he brought me in.
I have tackled God on me bended knees,
So He'll save him alive 'n' whole,
For the sake of one who he thinks
he sees
When the Nurse's hands bring a kind of ease;
And I thank
God, too, for the things like these
That have give me a sort of soul.
There are Percies, Algies, 'n' Claudes I've
met
Who could take it 'n' come agen,
While the bullets flew in a
screamin' jet.
What in pain, 'n' death, and in mire 'n' sweat
I 'ave
learned from them that I won't forget
Is a way of not judgin' men.
SISTER ANN.
I'M lyin' in a narrow bed,
'N' starin' at a wall.
Where all is white my plastered head
Is whitest of it all.
My life is jist a whitewashed blank,
With flamin' spurts of pain.
I dunno who I've got to thank,
I've
p'raps been trod on by a tank,
Or caught out in the rain
When skies were peltin' fish-plates, bricks


'n' lengths of bullock-chain.
I'm lyin' here, a sulky swine,
'N' hatin' of the bloke
Who's in the doss right next to mine
With 'arf his girders broke.
He never done no 'arm t me,
'N' he's pertickler ill;
But I have got him snouted, see,
'N' all old
earth beside but she
Come with the chemist's swill,
'N' puts a kind, soft 'and on mine, 'n'
all
my nark is still.
She ain't a beaut, she's thirty two,
She scales eleven stone;
But, 'struth, I didn't think it true
There was such women grown!
She's nurse 'n' sister, mum 'n' dad,
'N' all that straight 'n' fine
In every girl I ever had.
When Gabr'el
comes, 'n' all the glad
Young saints are tipped the sign,
You'll see this donah take her place,
first
angel in the line!
She's sweet 'n' cool, her touch is dew--
Wet lilies on yer brow.
(Jist 'ark et me what never knew
Of lilies up to now).
She fits your case in 'arf a wink,
'N' knows how, why, 'n' where.
If you are five days gone in drink,

N' hoverin' on perdition's brink,
It is her brother there.
God how pain will take a man, and
He has
spoke with her!

I dunno if she ever sleeps
Ten minutes at a stretch.
A dozen times a night she creeps
To soothe a screamin' wretch
Who has a tiger-headed Hun
A-gnawin' at his chest.
'N' when the long, 'ard flght is won,
'N' he is
still 'n' nearly done,
She smiles down on his rest,
'N' minds me of a mother with a baby at
her
breast.
The curly kid we cuddled when
There was no splendid row
(It seemed a little matter then,
But feels so wondrous now).
It's part of her. She's Joan iv Ark,
Flo Nightingale, all fair
'N' dinkum dames who've made their mark

If she comes tip-toe in the dark,
We blighters feel her there.
The whole pack perks up like a bird, 'n'

sorter takes the air.
She chats you in a 'Ighland botch;
But if our Sis saw fit
To pitch Hindoo instead of Scotch
I'd get the hang of it,
Because her heart it is that talks
What now is plain to me.
At war where bloody murder stalks,
'N'
Nick his hottest samples hawks.
I have been given to see
What simple human kindness is, what

brotherhood may be.
BRICKS.

DEAR Ned, I now take up my pen to write
you these few lines,
And hopin' how they find you fit. Gorbli',
it seems an age
Since Jumbo ducked the Port, 'n' drilled 'n'
polished to the nines,
He walked his pork on Collins like a hero off
the stage,
Then hiked a rifle 'cross the sea this bleedin'
war to wage.
The things what's 'appened lately calls to
Jumbo's mind that day
Our push took on the Peewee pack, 'n'
belted out their lard,
With twenty cops to top it off. But now I'm
stowed away,
A bullet in me gizzard where I took it good
and hard,
A-dealin'-stoush 'n' mullock to the Prussian
flamin' Guard.
At Bullcoor mortal charnce had dumped a
mutton-truck of us
From good ole Port ker-flummox where we
didn't orter be,
All in a 'elpless hole-the Pug, Bill Carkeek,
Son, 'n' Gus,
Don, Steve, 'n' Jack, 'n' seven more, 'n', as