Voices of Silence Read online

Against this creed of bar and goad,

  The Ironside is in us yet

  As when the ranks of Cromwell rode.

  For all things clean, for all things brave,

  For peace, for spiritual light,

  To keep love’s body whole, to save

  The hills of intellectual sight,

  Girt at your Belgian gate we stand,

  Our trampled faith undaunted still,

  With heart unseared and iron hand

  And old indomitable will.

  John Drinkwater

  The Old Soldiers

  We come from dock and shipyard, we come from car and train,

  We come from foreign countries to slope our arms again

  And, forming fours by numbers or turning to the right,

  We’re learning all our drills again and ’tis a pretty sight.

  Our names are all unspoken, our regiments forgotten,

  For some of us were pretty bad and some of us were rotten,

  And some will misremember what once they learnt with pain

  And hit a bloody serjeant and go to clink again.

  Edward Shanks

  March up to the Colours

  Come on, come in, and like a river flowing,

  In volume irresistible toward the raging sea;

  Let all the nations see that Britons now are willing

  To fight for right and justice in ‘The War of Liberty’.

  Let there be no laggards of our able bodied youth,

  In silken dalliance toying, as in piping times of peace;

  When ‘home land’ is in danger it is a time forsooth,

  To show you are true metal and to take a gun apiece.

  The war may be a short one, or it may last for years,

  You are ready to endure it, to prove your country right;

  If Belgium now is burning amid a rain of tears,

  It might have been ‘Our England!’ so strike with all your might.

  Kitchener has called for you to take a Briton’s share,

  Your country has need of you, so do not hesitate

  To march up to the colours, with many a mother’s prayer,

  For England, home and beauty – remember Belgium’s fate.

  W.J. Wilkinson

  The Skunk

  The Skunk is quite a nasty beast,

  Unsavoury, to say the least.

  A football match he likes to watch,

  Smoke cigarettes, and call for ‘Scotch’,

  The daily papers he enjoys

  That tell about the other boys;

  But when the War is done, the Skunk

  Will wish he hadn’t been a funk!

  St John Hamund

  The Sloth

  The Sloth is of another kind;

  He doesn’t want to stop behind;

  He means to fight. ‘Some day’ perhaps

  He’ll go and join the other chaps.

  And when at last he’s at the Front

  He’s just the sort to bear the brunt.

  Let’s stick a pin in him to show

  That now’s the proper time to go!

  St John Hamund

  Cricket Field or Battle Field?

  (‘This is not the time to play games.’ – Lord Roberts)

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But won when the world’s at rest:

  Not when the heart of the world is sore

  And the soul of the world distressed.

  Not when the score is a thousand score,

  And a thousand score of the best!

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But won when the world’s at rest:

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But not in the time of strife:

  Not when the eye of the world is stern,

  And it’s war, my sons, to the knife!

  Not when the call is for each and all,

  And the Cause is your country’s life!

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But not in the time of strife.

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But not when your King’s umpire:

  Not when the breath of your batsmen faints

  And the arms of your bowlers tire;

  Not when the runs are acclaimed by guns,

  And the ball is a ball of fire!

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But not when your King’s umpire!

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But what of another place?

  Throw off your white for the khaki cloth,

  And a worthier wicket face!

  And then if you win, by the grace of God,

  Return to the God of Grace!

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But what of that other place?

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But won when the world’s at rest:

  Not when the score is a thousand score,

  And a thousand score of the best;

  Not when the heart of the world is sore

  And the soul of the world distressed.

  Battles are won in the playing fields –

  But won when the world’s at rest!

  L. Godfrey-Turner

  First Week in the Army

  (As interpreted by some of the ‘Derby’ Jocks)

  On Saturday I listed in the tartan boys brigade,

  And said good-bye to all my pals, long hair, and lemonade.

  ’Twas Sunday night I kissed the girls I had to leave behind,

  I only wept a pint or so – some more I’d sure to find.

  On Monday I reported quite punctual at eight,

  Got fitted out in khaki, and in kilts I felt first rate.

  On Tuesday I encountered Sergeant Major’s fearsome glare,

  And my knees they knocked like ninepins, they weren’t used to being bare.

  On Wednesday I did squad drill and doubling by the hour,

  Until everything inside me had turned completely sour.

  On Thursday came a route march which I voted quite a treat,

  Until the Friday morning when I had to dress my feet.

  On Friday morn I stood in line to get my first week’s pay,

  With Ripon Town so near at hand, it soon had gone astray.

  On Saturday I had the time to dream of things I’d miss,

  And cursed the blooming Kaiser who brought me into this.

  Pro Patria

  In bowler hats, top coats,

  With woollen mufflers round their throats,

  They played at war,

  These man I watched to-day.

  Weary with office work, pinched-faced, depressed,

  About the field they marched and counter-marched,

  Halting and marking time and all the rest –

  Meanwhile the world went on its way

  To see the football heroes play.

  No music, no applause,

  No splendour for them but a Cause

  Hid deep at heart.

  They drilled there soberly,

  Their one half-holiday – the various show

  Of theatres all resisted, home renounced;

  The Picture Palace with its kindly glow

  Forgotten now, that they may be

  Worthy of England’s chivalry.

  Winifred M. Letts

  The Volunteers

  Time: 7.30 p.m. Scene: A large disused barn, where forty members of the local Volunteer Training Corps are assembled for drill. They are mostly men well over thirty-eight years of age, but there is a sprinkling of lads of under nineteen, while a few are men of ‘military age’ who for some good and sufficient reason have been unable to join the army. They are all full of enthusiasm, but at present they possess neither uniform nor arms. Please note that in the following dialogue the Sergeant alone speaks aloud; the other person thinks, but gives no utterance to his words.

  The Serge
ant. Fall in! Fall in! Come smartly there, fall in

  And recollect that when you’ve fallen in

  You stand at ease, a ten-inch space between

  Your feet – like this; your hands behind your back –

  Your weight well poised on both feet, not on one.

  Dress by the right, and let each rear rank man

  Quick cover off his special front rank man.

  That’s it; that’s good. Now when I say, ‘Squad, ’shun’,

  Let every left heel swiftly join the right

  Without a shuffling or a scraping sound

  And let the angle of your two feet be

  Just forty-five, the while you smartly drop

  Hands to your sides, the fingers lightly bent,

  Thumbs to the front, but every careful thumb

  Kept well behind your trouser-seams. Squad, ’shun!

  The Volunteer. Ha! Though I cannot find my trouser-seams,

  I rather think I did that pretty well.

  Thomas, my footman, who is on my left,

  And Batts, the draper, drilling on my right,

  And e’en the very Sergeant must have seen

  The lithe precision of my rapid spring.

  The Sergeant. When next I call you to attention, note

  You need not slap your hands against your thighs.

  It is not right to slap your thighs at all.

  The Volunteer. He’s looking at me; I am half afraid

  I used unnecessary violence

  And slapped my thighs unduly. It is bad

  That Thomas should have cause to grin at me

  And lose his proper feeling of respect,

  Being a flighty fellow at the best;

  And Batts the draper must not ——

  The Sergeant. Stand at ease!

  The Volunteer. Aha! He wants to catch me, but he ——

  The Sergeant. ’Shun!

  The Volunteer. Bravo, myself! I did not slap them then.

  I am indubitably getting on.

  I wonder if the Germans do these things,

  And what they sound like in the German tongue.

  The Germans are a ——

  The Sergeant. Sharply number off

  From right to left, and do not jerk your heads.

  [They number off.

  The Volunteer. I’m six, an even number, and must do

  The lion’s share in forming fours. What luck

  For Batts, who’s five, and Thomas, who is seven.

  They also serve, but only stand and wait,

  While I behind the portly form of Batts

  Insert myself and then slip out again

  Clear to the front, observing at the word

  The ordered sequence of my moving feet.

  Come let me brace myself and dare ——

  The Sergeant. Form fours!

  The Volunteer. I cannot see the Sergeant; I’m obscured

  Behind the acreage of Batts’s back.

  Indeed it is a very noble back

  And would protect me if we charged in fours

  Against the Germans, but I rather think

  We charge two deep, and therefore ——

  The Sergeant. Form two deep!

  The Volunteer. Thank Heaven I’m there, although I mixed my feet!

  I am oblivious of the little things

  That mark the due observance of a drill;

  And Thomas sees my faults and grins again.

  Let him grin on; my time will come once more

  At dinner, when he hands the Brussels sprouts.

  [The drill proceeds.

  Now we’re in fours and marching like the wind.

  This is more like it; this is what we need

  To make us quit ourselves like regulars.

  Left, right, left, right! The Sergeant gives it out

  As if he meant it. Stepping out like this

  We should breed terror in the German hordes

  And drive them off. The Sergeant has a gleam

  In either eye; I think he’s proud of us.

  Or does he meditate some stratagem

  To spoil our marching?

  The Sergeant. On the left form squad!

  The Volunteer. There! He has done it! He has ruined us!

  I’m lost past hope, and Thomas, too, is lost;

  And in a press of lost and tangled men

  The great broad back of Batts heaves miles away.

  [The Sergeant explains and the drill proceeds.

  The Volunteer. No matter; we shall some day learn it all,

  The standing difference ’twixt our left and right,

  The bayonet exercise, the musketry,

  And all the things a soldier does with ease.

  I must remember it’s a long, long way

  To Tipperary, but my heart’s ——

  The Sergeant. Dismiss!

  [A subaltern known as Colquhoun]

  A subaltern known as Colquhoun,

  Was considered, at home, a buffoquhoun,

  He would not have been

  If his parents had seen

  Him drilling his Scottish Platolquhoun.

  The Barrack Room

  ‘Lights out’ has sounded long ago, and midnight must be near;

  The wind without roars winterly, the moon shines cold and clear;

  Each window on the ceiling casts a phantom window white,

  Which o’er the long, bare, narrow room reflects an eerie light.

  It shines on thirty wooden beds, six inches from the floor,

  Where thirty fellows for a while the officers ignore;

  The silent bugle gives them peace, and now, until the day,

  Their bodies rest; their dreams may fly who knows how far away?

  For scarcely two were of one trade, whom war’s demands unite,

  Who left the office, study, plough, for one great cause to fight;

  The veteran hard beside the boy who never drilled before,

  Each with what little soldiers need ranged near him on the floor.

  There’s cheeky Jimmy, the recruit, who does the shuffle dance,

  He left his fifteen bob a week to capture Huns in France;

  There’s Algy Somebody, Esquire, neglecting an estate,

  And all the pheasant shooting, too, to learn ‘deliberate’.

  There’s ‘Whistlefield’, the farmer chiel – find soldiering hard? Not he!

  Who’d dance sometimes till two a.m., and yoke his cart at three;

  There’s poor old Bill, the banker’s clerk, who started work at ten,

  And thought he’d learn to ride a horse instead of drive a pen!

  For each the work, the grub, the luck, the hope and fear the same,

  Who comes for motives all diverse to learn the grimmest game;

  And surely when, or soon or late, the weary war is done,

  He’ll be more quick to see a pal in every mother’s son!

  W. Kersley Holmes

  [Have you seen the Pals, sir?]

  Have you seen the Pals, sir?

  As they swing out through the town,

  There’s Tom and Dick and Harry,

  Smith, Robinson and Brown.

  A credit to their Colonel, sir,

  In their uniforms so neat,

  I’m sure we all are proud of them,

  As they march along the street.

  And don’t they look so smart,

  When they’re out upon parade,

  Men from every rank of life,

  And every kind of trade.

  Married men and single men,

  All ready to face the foe.

  God guard the Pals of Accrington,

  Wherever they may go.

  Their officers are proud of them,

  These lads in navy blue,

  All workers not shirkers,

  [ ]

  All volunteers, not conscripts,

  Beloved by all the girls,

  Give them a cheer when they appear,

  They�
�re worth it are the Pals.

  C. Wolstencroft

  The Call to Arms

  There’s a woman sobs her heart out,

  With her head against the door,

  For the man that’s called to leave her,

  – God have pity on the poor!

  But it’s beat, drums, beat,

  While the lads march down the street,

  And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,

  Keep your tears until they go.

  There’s a crowd of little children

  That march along and shout,

  For it’s fine to play at soldiers

  Now their fathers are called out.

  So it’s beat, drums, beat;

  But who’ll find them food to eat?

  And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,

  Ah! the children little know.

  There’s a mother who stands watching

  For the last look of her son,

  A worn poor widow woman,

  And he her only one.

  But it’s beat, drums, beat,

  Though God knows when we shall meet;

  And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,

  We must smile and cheer them so.

  There’s a young girl who stands laughing,

  For she thinks a war is grand,

  And it’s fine to see the lads pass,

  And it’s fine to hear the band.

  So it’s beat, drums, beat,

  To the fall of many feet;

  And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,

  God go with you where you go.

  Winifred M. Letts

  On Trek

  Under a grey dawn, timidly breaking,

  Through the little village the men are waking,

  Easing their stiff limbs and rubbing their eyes;

  From my misted window I watch the sun rise.

  In the middle of the village a fountain stands,

  Round it the men sit, washing their red hands.

  Slowly the light grows, we call the roll over,

  Bring the laggards stumbling from their warm cover,

  Slowly the company gathers all together

  And the men and the officer look shyly at the weather.

  By the left, quick march! Off the column goes.

  All through the village all the windows unclose: