The Happy Warrior (5 page)

(AWM PR 00187)

Assignment

Laughingly he told us before he went away

To look inside his wallet, we'd find his last weeks pay,

And should he not return we were to spend the bloomin lot

On a stimulating beverage at the first inviting spot.

We said “Good luck!” and watched their shapes fade dimly in the west

And I thought how many a truthful word is often said in jest;

So we went about our work until the boys returned at three

Then we heard that one missing and I knew at once 'twas he.

And now that we are back a bit we all agree it's best

That we go on leave together and fulfil his small request;

And we'll spend his well-earned money and we'll drink to one who knew

That we'd be with him in spirit just the way he asked us to.

Pte A. Morrison

QX4534

(AWM PR 00392)

Rhyme of War Gasses

If you get a choking feeling

And the smell of musty hay

You can bet your bottom dollar

That there's phosgene on the way,

But the smell of bleaching powder

Will inevitably mean

That the enemy we are meeting

Is the gas we call chlorine.

When your eyes begin a-twitching

And for tears you cannot see

It's not mother peeling onions

But a dose of C.A.P.

Should the smell resemble pear-drops

You had better not delay;

It's not your mate that's sucking toffee

It's the awful K.S.K.

If you catch a pungent odor

As you're going home for tea

You may safely take for granted

That they're using B.B.C.

If for garlic or onions

You have cultivated a taste

When in war you meet these orders

Leave the area in haste:

It's mustard gas, that hellish stuff,

That leaves you one big blister

And in hospital you will need

The attention of a Sister.

White geranium looks quite pleasant

In a jar beside the bed

You must learn that smell in wartime —

If it's Lewisite, you're dead.

Cpl M. M. Carroll

2/4 Aust. Field Bakery

(AWM PR 00544)

“Stand To”

Between the night and the morning,

When the vigilant sentry's wet through,

Comes an hour by all soldiers detested,

Which begins with the order “Stand To”.

Then the tired soldier puts on his sheepskin,

And his words turn the atmosphere blue,

For he knows that he'll freeze for an hour,

Then the OC's voice rings out “Stand To”.

How his anger will rise ‘gainst the Kaiser

And he'll curse all that Sauerkraut crew,

And it's God help the Hun that he catches,

When the Sergeant repeats the “Stand To”.

Is your magazine loaded and ready,

Is your bayonet fixed on firm and true?

‘Tis the questioning voice of the Sergeant,

When the word's passed along to “Stand To”.

And then when his vigil is over

In his heart blossoms forth hope anew,

And once more he feels life is worth living,

When he's finished the daily “Stand To”.

But we're working and hoping for victory

And when we have smashed our way through,

Every day for the twenty-four hours

We'll see that the Germans “Stand To”.

Pte Charles H. Breckell

19th Batt. AIF

(AWM 1 DRL 148)

Boxing On

There's a heavy, distant rumble

As the lingering sun sinks low,

And there's flashing of artillery

In the battle's ebb and flow;

And the searchlight ever flickers

Seeking, seeking for a sign

Of the enemy in motion

Down the line.

Now the din creeps ever nearer

Till the air is rocked with sound,

And the rifles and machine guns

Get to business, all around;

And there sounds the devil's chorus,

The discordant notes of hell,

When the guns boom forth their greetings

In unceasing bursts of shell.

But at last the gunfire slackens

And reluctantly draws to a close,

As the sound-stunned weary gunners

Seek a short, hard-earned repose;

And only the sentry's rifle

And machine gun's deadly breath,

Remain to remind the wakeful

Of nations in grips to the death.

Pte Charles H. Breckell

19th Batt. AIF

(AWM 1 DRL 148)

Thoughts on a Cottage Wrecked by Gun Fire

Ere yet the contending hosts in battle wrought,

It stood, a humble wayside home;

The labourer after toil its sanctuary sought,

Not ever far from its old roof would roam;

Content to spend the autumn of his life

Amid the circle of his bairns and wife.

But now, alas, his Joys and Hopes are dead,

Scarce stone on stone of that fair cottage stands;

The labourer and his family far have fled,

The striving armies desecrate his lands.

The gunner who, in thoughtless pride of aim

With cold precision, wrecked that cottage so,

Gave not a thought to humble folk bowed low,

Eating the bread of charity in shame.

But such is the reckoning mankind must pay,

When monarchs' wild ambitions are given play.

Pte Charles H. Breckell

19th Batt. AIF

Killed in Action, Flers, 14 November 1916,

Aged 23 years

(AWM 1 DRL 148)

How Rifleman Brown Came to Valhalla

To the lower Hall of Vallalla, to the heroes of no renown,

Relieved from his spell at the listening-post, came Rifleman Joseph Brown

With never a rent in his khaki nor a smear of blood on his face

He flung his pack from his shoulders and made for an empty place.

The killer-men of Valhalla looked up from the banquet board

At the unfouled breach of his rifle, at the unfleshed point of his sword;

And the unsung dead of the trenches, the kings who have never a crown,

Demanded his pass to Valhalla from Rifleman Joseph Brown.

“Who comes unhit to the party ?” A one-legged Corporal spoke,

And the gashed heads nodded approval through the rings of endless smoke.

“Who comes for the beer and woodbines of the never-closed canteen,

With the barrack-shine on his bayonet and a full-charged magazine?”

Then Rifleman Brown looked 'round him at the nameless men of the Line,

At the wounds of the shell and the bullet, at the burns of the bomb and the mine;

At the tunics virgin of medals but crimson-clotted with blood,

At the ankle boots and the puttees caked stiff with the Flanders mud;

At the myriad short Lee-Enfields that crowded the rifle-rack,

Each with its blade to the sword-boss brown and its muzzle powder-black:

And Rifleman Brown said never a word; yet he felt in the soul of his soul

His right to the beer of the lower Hall, though he came to drink of it whole;

His right to the fags of the free canteen, to a seat at the banquet board

Though he came to the men who had killed their man with never a man to his sword.

“Who speaks for the stranger Rifleman, O boys of the free canteen?

Who passes the chap with the unmaimed limbs and the kit that is far too clean?”

The gashed heads eyed him above their beers, the gashed lips sucked at their smoke:

There were three at the board of his own platoon, but not a man of them spoke.

His mouth was mad for the tankard froth and the biting whiff of a fag

But he knew he might not speak for himself to the dead men who do not brag.

A gun-butt crashed on the gate-way, a man came staggering in;

His head was cleft with a great red wound from the templebone to the chin,

His blade was dyed to the bayonet-boss with the clots that were scarcely dry,

And he cried to the men who had killed their man: “Who passes the Rifleman? I!”

By the four I slew, by the shell I stopped, if my feet be not too late,

I speak the word for Rifleman Brown, that a chap may speak for a mate.”

The dead of lower Valhalla, the heroes of dumb renown,

They pricked their ears to the tale of the earth as they set their tankards down.

“My mate was on sentry this evening when the General happened along,

And asked what he would do in a gas attack. Joe told him, “Beat on the gong.”

“What else?” “Open fire, Sir,” Joe answered. “Good God, man,” our General said,

“By the time you'd beaten that bloodstained gong the chances are you'd be dead.

Just think lad!” “Gas helmet of course, Sir!” “Yes damn it, and gas-helmet first!”

So Joe stood dumb to attention and wondered why he'd been cursed.

The gashed heads turned to the Rifleman and now it seemed that they knew

Why the face that had never a smear of blood was stained to the jawbone blue.

“He was posted again at midnight.” The scarred heads craned to the voice,

As the man with the blood-red bayonet spoke up for the mate of his choice.

“You know what it's like at a listening post, the Verey candles aflare,

Their bullets smacking the sand-bags, our Vickers combing your hair,

How your ears and your eyes get jumpy till each known tuft that you scan

Moves and crawls in the shadows till you'd almost swear it was a man;

You know how you peer and snuff at the night when the north east gas-wind blows.”

“By the One who made us and maimed us,” quoth lower Valhalla, “we know.”

Sudden, out of the blackness, sudden as hell there came

Roar and rattle of rifles, spurts of machine-gun flame;

And Joe stood up in the forward sap to try and fathom the game.

Sudden, their shells came screaming; sudden, his nostrils sniff

The sickening reek of the rotten pears the death that kills with a whiff.

Death! And he knows it certain, as he bangs on his cartridge-case,

While the gas-cloud claws at his windpipe and the gas-cloud wings on his face.

We heard his gong in our dugout, he only whacked on it twice,

We whipped our gas-bags over our heads, and manned the steps in thrice

For the cloud would have caught us as sure as Fate if he'd taken the Staff's advice.

His head was cleft with a great red wound from the chin to the templebone

But his voice was as clear as a sounding gong, “I'll be damned if I'll drink alone!

Not even in lower Valhalla! Is he free of your free canteen,

My mate who comes with the unfleshed point and the full-charged magazine?”

The gashed heads rose at the Rifleman o'er the rings of the Endless Smoke,

And as the roar of a thousand guns, Valhalla's answer broke,

And loud as the crash of a thousand shells their tankards clashed on the board:

“He is free of the mess of the Killer-men, your mate of the unfleshed sword;

“For we know the worth of his deed on earth; as we know the speed of the death

Which catches its man by the back of the throat and gives him water for breath;

As we know how the hand at the helmet-cloth may tarry seconds too long,

When the very life of the front-line trench is staked on the beat of a gong;

By the four you slew, by the case he smote, by the grey gas-cloud and the green,

We pass your mate of the Endless Smoke and the beer of the free canteen.”

In the lower hall of Valhalla, with the heroes of no renown,

With our nameless dead of the Marne and the Aisne, of Mons and Wipers town,

With the men who killed 'ere they died for us, sits Rifleman Joseph Brown.

Gilbert Frankau

39th Batt. AMF

(AWM PR 83/34)

After the First Battle of Alamein

Shaded by desert sand dunes,

Lulled by the murmur of waves;

Quickly we went back to nature,

Forgetting Syria and old Tobruk's caves.

The roar of the guns at Tel Eisa

Brought war and reality near;

We soon had a big job before us,

No time for reflection or fear.

Then came the war-wounded weary,

Shell-torn wounds covered in flies;

Sick of the war and the desert,

The reflection of hell in their eyes.

There on the dunes of the desert,

For many the war had its end;

All they had they had given:

Their life, Freedom's cause to defend.

Some the Grim Reaper defeated,

Back from the shadow they came;

Saved by the skill of a surgeon,