Hello, Soldier! | Page 5

it 'appens, me,
With nothin' in since breakfast, 'n' a week
to go for tea.
Worked loose from Caddy's bunch, we went

it gay until we found
We'd took to 'arf the ragin' German Hempire
on our own.
Then down we went so 'umble, with our noses
in the ground,
Takin' cover in the rubble. If a German head
was shown
It was fare-the-well to Herman with a bullet
through the bone.
We slogged the cows remorseless, 'n' they
laid for us a treat.
We held that stinkin' cellar, though, 'n' when
the day was done
Son pussied on his bingie where a Maxie trim
'n' neat
Had spit out loaded lightnin', and he slugged
a tubby Hun,
Then choked a Fritzie with his dukes, 'n'
pinched the sooner's gun!
We rigged her on her knuckle-bones. Cri',
how she lapped 'em up!
We hosed 'em out with livin' lead. That was
the second day.
Me left eye I'd 'ave give for jest a bubble in a
cup,
Three fingers I'd 'ave parted for a bone I've
flung away;
But the butcher wasn't callin', 'n' the fountain
didn't play.
T'was rotten mozzle, Neddo. We had blown
out ever clip,
'N' 'blooed the hammunition for the little box

of tricks.
Each took a batten in his fist. Sez Billy
"Let 'er rip!"
But Son he claws his stubble. Sez--he:
"Hold a brace of ticks."
Then "Yow!" he pipes 'n' "Strewth!" he
sez, "it's bricks, you blighters,
bricks!"
There's more than 'arf a million spilt where
somethin' hit a pub;
We creeps among 'n' sorts 'em, stack afore,
'n' stack behind;
The Hun is comin' at us with his napper like
a tub--
You couldn't 'ope to miss it, pickled, paralysed,
'n' blind.
Sez Sonny: "Lay 'em open! Give 'em
blotches on the rind!"
Then bricks was flyin' in the wind. Mine
dinted Otto's chin;
Ole Nosey got his brother, which he never
more will roam.
When Ulrich stopped a Port bookay he rolled
his alley in.
Their fire 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