Hello, Soldier! | Page 7

column list.
When hack to front I chucks me bricks 'n'
smiles the best I can.
He grins at me: "Yer right," sez he, "Hold
out yer bla'-guard fist,
I couldn't fight yeh, blarst yeh, if yeh dinted
in me pan.
This messin' round wid Germans makes a
chicken iv a man."
JAM.
(A Hymn of Hate).
WHAT is meant by active service
'Ere where sin is leakin' loose,
'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis
As a dog-bedevilled goose,
Has bin writ be every poet
What can rhyme it worth a dam,
But the 'orror as we know it
Is jist jam, jam, JAM!
Oh, the 'ymn of 'ate we owe it--
Stodgy,
splodgy, seepy, soaky, sanguinary
jam!
There's the "fearful roar iv battle,"

What gets underneath yer 'at,
Mooin' like a million cattle
Each as big as Ararat;
There's the red field green 'n' slippy
(And I'm cleaner where I am),
But the thing that's got me nippy
It is jam, jam, JAM!
Druv us sour it has, 'n' dippy,
Sticky, sicky,
slimy, sloppy, stummick-strafin'
jam!
Of the mud that's in the trenches
Writers make a solemn fuss;
For the vermin 'n' the stenches
Little ladies pity us;
But the yearn that's honest dinkum,
'N' the prayer what ain't a sham
Is that Fritz may bust 'n' sink 'em
Ships of jam, jam, JAM!
For we bolt 'em, chew 'em, drink 'em,

Million billion bar'ls of beastly, cloyin'
clammy jam!
We are sorry-sick of peaches,
'N' we're full right up of plum,
'N' innards fairly screeches
When the tins of apple come.
Back of Blighty piled in cases,
Jist as close as they can cram,
Fillin' all the open spaces,
Is the 'jam, jam, JAM!
Oh, the woe the soldiers face is,
Monday,
Sunday, ruddy, muddy, boundless
bogs of jam.
WEEPIN' WILLIE.

WHEY our trooper hit wide water every
heart was yearin' back
To the little 'ouse at Coogee or a hut at
Barrenjack.
She was 'ookin' up to spike the stars, or rootin'
in the wave,
An' me liver turned a hand spring with each
buck the beggar gave.
Then we pulls a sick 'n' silly smile 'n' tips a
saucy lid,
Crackin' hardy. Willie didn't. Willie
snivelled like a kid.
At Gallip' the steamer dumped us, 'n' we got
right down to work,
Whoopin' up the hill splendacious, playin'
tiggie with the Turk.
When the stinkin' Abdul hit us we curled
down upon a stone,
'N' we yelled for greater glory, crackin' 'ardy
on our own.
Not so Willie. He was cursin', cold ez death
'n' grey ez steel,
'N' the smallest thing that busted made the
little blighter squeal.
In the bitter day's that follered, spillin' life beside
the sea,
We would fake a spry expression for the things
that had to be,
Always dressin' up the winder, crackin' 'ardy
though we felt
Fearful creepy in the whiskers, very cold beneath
the belt.
But his jills would sniff 'n' shiver in the mother

of a fright,
'N' go blubberin' 'n' quakin' out to waller in
the fight.
In the West we liked the weather, 'n' we fattened
in the mud,
Crackin' 'ardy, stewed together, rats an'
slurry men 'n' 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,