Voices of Silence Page 11

  I see the German sap-head;

  A cow is lying there,

  Its belly like a barrel,

  Its legs are in the air.

  The big guns rip like thunder,

  The bullets whizz o’erhead,

  But o’er the sea in England

  Good people lie abed.

  And over there in England

  May every honest soul

  Sleep sound while we sit watching

  On listening patrol.

  Patrick MacGill

  A True Tale of the Listening Post

  (Dedicated to R.E.K.)

  Men are queer things right through – whatever make –

  But Tommy Atkins really takes the cake.

  * * *

  Which said, see in your mind (my point to prove)

  Two soldiers, frozen and afraid to move,

  On listening patrol. For four dead hours

  Afraid to move or whisper, cough or sneeze,

  Waiting in wonder whether ’twas the breeze

  Moved in the grass, shaking the frozen flowers

  Just then. Germans were out that night, we knew,

  With bombs to throw, and so we lay, we two,

  With rifle ready at shoulder, and . . . What’s that

  Twanging the wire (both heard the sound) – a rat?

  Or the Bosche bomber creeping, creeping nigher

  To hurl death into the trench behind us? Both

  Turned barrels ’gainst the unknown, ready to fire,

  Waiting to fire should ever it take form

  Of human body. – Waiting, being loath

  To shoot at nothing, making so alarm

  And laughter in the trench we guarded. Here

  Sounds a hoarse whisper against my ear:

  Something it utters – ‘What is it?’ I hiss,

  Soft as a serpent; and upon my oath

  My comrade covering still the sound, said – this.

  This, while the unknown stalked, and fear was chilly

  Like ice around our hearts – ‘I say old chap’

  (My laughter followed like a thunder-clap)

  ‘Couldn’t I do some beef and piccalilli.’

  * * *

  Men are quaint things world over, willy nilly.

  But R.E.K. – you take the – piccalilli.

  F.W. Harvey

  No Man’s Land

  No Man’s Land is an eerie sight

  At early dawn in the pale grey light.

  Never a house and never a hedge

  In No Man’s Land from edge to edge,

  And never a living soul walks there

  To taste the fresh of the morning air; –

  Only some lumps of rotting clay,

  That were friends or foemen yesterday.

  What are the bounds of No Man’s Land?

  You see them clearly on either hand,

  A mound of rag-bags grey in the sun,

  Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks run

  From the Eastern hills to the Western sea,

  Through field or forest o’er river and lea;

  No man may pass them, but aim you well

  And Death rides across on the bullet or shell.

  But No Man’s Land is a goblin sight

  When patrols crawl over at dead o’ night;

  Boche or British, Belgian or French,

  You dice with death when you cross the trench.

  When the ‘rapid’, like fire-flies in the dark,

  Flits down the parapet spark by spark,

  And you drop for cover to keep your head

  With your face on the breast of the four months’ dead.

  The man who ranges in No Man’s Land

  Is dogged by shadows on either hand

  When the star-shell’s flare, as it bursts o’erhead,

  Scares the great grey rats that feed on the dead,

  And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-snatch

  May answer the click of your safety-catch,

  For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand,

  Is hunting for blood in No Man’s Land.

  James H. Knight-Adkin

  On Patrol

  There were dead men on the wire

  Lying in the bloodied mire –

  Staring wildly at the skies

  With their cold and sightless eyes –

  Stars grinned down with hideous faces,

  And the moon was mocking them

  With grimaces.

  Raymond Heywood

  FIVE

  Out of the Line

  Billets, letters from home, estaminets and concerts

  Out of the line the men were billeted in barns or abandoned buildings. Here they could catch up on news from home and on sleep, although the drills and fatigues – taking materials up into the line – often made their rest even busier than their time in the trenches. They would visit communal baths – possibly old wooden vats filled with hot water – and be issued with clean uniforms, though it would not be long before the perennial problem of a soldier’s life – lice, or ‘chats’ as they called them – would reassert themselves. Many hours were spent ‘chatting’, as they ran candle-flames up the seams of their clothes to burn the lice out, or picked them off one by one and burst them between their finger-nails.

  There were visits to the local family-run estaminet or bar, where there might be an attractive young daughter of the house with whom they could flirt. Here they drank sometimes over-priced and almost always watered-down beer, or white wine, which they nicknamed plink-plonk after vin blanc, and ate egg and chips. Football matches or gymkhanas might be organised, and occasionally some kind of entertainment was laid on, either with visiting artistes or with shows put together by the men themselves. For some there were visits to local prostitutes, and venereal disease was soon a serious problem.

  The Dawn

  (Givenchy)

  The dawn comes creeping o’er the plains,

  The saffron clouds are streaked with red,

  I hear the creaking limber chains,

  I see the drivers raise their reins

  And urge their weary mules ahead.

  And men go up and men go down,

  The marching hosts are grand to see

  In shrapnel-shivered trench and town,

  In spinneys where the leaves of brown

  Are falling on the dewy lea.

  Lonely and still the village lies,

  The houses sleeping, the blinds all drawn.

  The road is straight as the bullet flies,

  And villagers fix their waking eyes

  On the shrapnel smoke that shrouds the dawn.

  Out of the battle, out of the night,

  Into the dawn and the blush of day,

  The road that takes us back from the fight,

  The road we love, it is straight and white,

  And it runs from the battle, away, away.

  Patrick MacGill

  Back in Billets

  We’re in billets again, and to-night, if you please,

  I shall strap myself up in a Wolsey valise.

  What’s that, boy? Your boots give you infinite pain?

  You can chuck them away: we’re in billets again.

  We’re in billets again now and, barring alarms,

  There’ll be no occasion for standing to arms,

  And you’ll find if you’d many night-watches to keep

  That the hour before daylight’s the best hour for sleep.

  We’re feasting on chocolate, cake, currant buns,

  To a faint German-band obbligato of guns,

  For I’ve noticed, wherever the regiment may go,

  That we always end up pretty close to the foe.

  But we’re safe out of reach of trench mortars and snipers

  Five inches south-west of the ‘Esses’ in Ypres;

  – Old Bob, who knows better, pronounces it Yper,

  But don’t argue the point now – you’ll waken the sleeper.


  Our host brings us beer up, our thirst for to quench,

  So we’ll drink him good fortune in English and French:

  – Bob, who finds my Parisian accent a blemish,

  Goes one better himself in a torrent of Flemish.

  It’s a fortnight on Friday since Christopher died,

  And John’s at Boulogne with a hole in his side,

  While poor Harry’s got lost, the Lord only knows where; –

  May the Lord keep them all and ourselves in His care.

  . . . Mustn’t think we don’t mind when a chap gets laid out,

  They’ve taken the best of us, never a doubt;

  But with life pretty busy and death rather near

  We’ve no time for regret any more than for fear.

  . . . Here’s a health to our host, Isidore Deschildre,

  Himself and his wife and their plentiful childer,

  And the brave aboyeur who bays our return;

  More power to his paws when he treads by the churn!

  You may speak of the Ritz or the Curzon (Mayfair)

  And maintain that they keep you in luxury there:

  If you’ve laid for six weeks on a water-logged plain,

  Here’s the acme of comfort, in billets again.

  Charles Scott-Moncrieff

  Gonnehem

  Of Gonnehem it shall be said

  That we arrived there late and worn

  With marching, and were given a bed

  Of lovely straw. And then at morn

  On rising from deep sleep saw dangle –

  Shining in the sun to spangle,

  The all-blue heaven – branch loads of red

  Bright cherries which we bought to eat,

  Dew-wet, dawn-cool, and sunny sweet.

  There was a tiny court-yard, too,

  Wherein one shady walnut grew.

  Unruffled peace the farm encloses –

  I wonder if beneath that tree,

  The meditating hens still be.

  Are the white walls now gay with roses?

  Does the small fountain yet run free?

  I wonder if that dog still dozes . . .

  Some day we must go back to see.

  F.W. Harvey

  The Billet

  A roof that hardly holds the rain;

  Walls shaking to the hurricane;

  Great doors upon their hinges creaking;

  Great rats upon the rafters squeaking –

  A midden in the courtyard reeking –

  Yet oft I’ve sheltered, snug and warm,

  Within that friendly old French farm!

  To trudge in from the soaking trench –

  The blasts that bite, the rains that drench –

  To loosen off your ponderous pack,

  To drop the harness from your back,

  Deliberate pull each muddy boot

  From each benumbed, frost-bitten foot;

  To wrap your body in your blanket,

  To mutter o’er a ‘Lord be thankit!’

  Sink out of sight below the straw,

  Then – Owre the hills and far awa’!

  * * *

  Perchance to waken from your sleep,

  And hear the big guns growling deep,

  Turn on your side, but breathe a prayer

  For beggars you have left up ‘there’.

  Then in the morn to stretch your legs,

  And hear the hens cluck o’er their eggs;

  And chanticleer’s bestirring blare;

  The whinnying of the Captain’s mare;

  Contented lowing of the kine,

  Complacent grunting of the swine;

  Chirping of birds beneath the eaves,

  Whisper of winds among the leaves,

  And – sound that soul of man rejoices –

  The pleasant hum of women’s voices –

  With all the cheery dins that be

  In a farmyard community;

  While sunlight bursting thro’ the thatch

  Burns in the black barn, patch and patch.

  By now your eyes and ears you ope –

  The pipes are skirling, ‘Johnnie Cope’ –

  And you arise to toil and trouble,

  And certainly to ‘double! double!’ –

  Of the day’s drills, must grudged of all

  That lagging hour called ‘physical!’

  Breakfast, of tea, and bread, and ham,

  With just a colouring of jam;

  Or, if you have the sous to pay,

  A feast of œufs and café-au-lait.

  Comes ten o’clock and we fall in,

  With rifle cleaned, and shaven chin;

  Once more we work the ‘manual’ through,

  And then ‘drill in platoons’ we do

  Till one, or maybe even two.

  At last ‘cook-house’ the pipers play,

  And so we dine as best we may.

  And now a shout that never fails

  To fetch us forth, ‘Here come the mails!’ –

  While one rejoices, t’other rails

  Because he has received no letter –

  Next time the Fates may use him better!

  Then comes an hour beneath a tree,

  With ‘Omar Khayyam’ on your knee,

  While wanton winds, in idle sport,

  Bombard you after harmless sort

  With apple blossoms from the bough –

  Ah! here is Paradise enow!

  ’Tis now that mystic hour of night

  When – parcels open – no respite

  Is given to cake, sweetmeat, sardine;

  Our zest would turn a gourmet green

  With envy, could he only see

  The meal out here, that’s yclep ‘tea’.

  The night has come, and all are hearty,

  Being exempt from a ‘working party’:

  And so we gather round the fire

  To chat, and presently conspire

  To pass an hour with song and story –

  The grave, the gay, ghostly or gory, –

  A tale, let’s say, both weird and fierce,

  By Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce,

  Then Skerry – Peace be to his Shade! –

  May play us Gounod’s ‘Serenade’,

  And, gazing thro’ the broken beams,

  Perchance we see the starry gleams.

  * * *

  But ‘Lights-out!’ sounds; ‘Good nights’ are said,

  And so we bundle off to bed.

  Sweet dreams infest each drowsy head

  And kindly Ghosts that work no harm

  Flit round about that old French farm!

  Joseph Lee

  The Camp in the Sands

  Down in the hollow of the dunes one night

  We made our bivouac; serene and bright

  The autumn day drew to its early close.

  While still the west was red, the moon arose

  And flung the witchery of her silver lamp

  Over the bustle of our hasty camp.

  Beyond the crested dunes the windy sea

  Murmured all night, now near, now distantly:

  And eerily around us we could hark

  The grass’s widespread whisper in the dark,

  As if the Little People of the Sands

  Gathered about us in their stealthy bands.

  Within the dip where our encampment lay

  The lines of weary horses munched their hay

  Or pawed the sand with quick, uneasy hoof;

  A glowing cook-fire flickered red aloof,

  From which a drift of soft blue smoke was blown;

  The loudest voice soon sank to undertone,

  Amidst the empty space ’twixt sand and sky,

  Ruled by the moon that rose so splendidly.

  All night around the camp our watch we kept,

  Posted on crests of sandy billows; swept

  From eve till dawn by the unbroken wind,

  Our eyes towards the dark; our camp behind.r />
  W. Kersley Holmes

  Letters to Tommy

  Oh, friends past our deserving,

  Discovered everywhere,

  Who load us lucky fellows

  With things to eat and wear,

  Your kindness knows no limit – you seem sincerely vexed

  That ever you need ask us – ‘What can we send you next?’

  For packages of pastry,

  For cigarettes and sweets,

  For cakes and scones and butter,

  For savoury bakemeats,

  For garments that you knit us – we thank you thousandfold,

  And if you ask, ‘What else, now?’ – why shouldn’t you be told?

  When from parade returning,

  We put our rifles by,

  There’s spring in every footstep,

  And hope in every eye;

  We hurry to our billets – yet, hungry and athirst,

  We don’t stampede for dinner – we look for letters first.

  You’d laugh, or sigh, to notice

  The pleasure fellows show

  To read their war addresses

  In writing that they know –

  Oh, if you wish us kindly, who fight – or hope to fight –

  Don’t wonder what to send us; we want you just to write.

  W. Kersley Holmes

  A Letter from Home

  We sit in our tent and we’re feeling forlorn,

  It’s raining outside and we’re sorry we’re born,

  All the ‘rookies’ are sad and the trained men are quiet,

  There’s not a man there who is game for a riot.

  But hark! down the lines a rough voice is calling,

  ’Tis the Orderly Corporal standing there bawling,

  And the words that he shouts amoving have set us,

  ‘Come out of your tents and fall in for your letters’.

  There’s one for Bill Stewart from his darling Polly,

  And off to his tent he goes looking jolly.

  And so it goes on till they’re all given away,

  Tho’ there’s many a chap who’s forgotten to-day.

  Then back they all go and you can’t hear a sound

  As they read them while sitting on the rough ground.