Voices of Silence Read online

  Those other hosts in graver conflict met,

  Those other sadder sounds your ears are hearing,

  Be sure we don’t forget.

  And you, our brothers, who, for all our praying,

  To this dear school of ours come back no more;

  Who lie, our country’s debt of honour paying –

  And not in vain – upon the Belgian shore;

  Till that great day when at the Throne of Heaven

  The Books are opened and the Judgment set,

  Your lives for honour and for England given

  The School will not forget.

  C.A. Alington

  ‘Punch’ in the Enemy’s Trenches

  (To the officer whose letter, reproduced in The Daily Telegraph, after reporting the irregular exchange of Christmas gifts between our men and the enemy, goes on to say: – ‘In order to put a stop to a situation which was proving impossible, I went out myself after a time with a copy of Punch, which I presented to a dingy Saxon in exchange for a small packet of excellent cigars and cigarettes.’)

  A scent of truce was in the air,

  And mutual compliments were paid –

  A sausage here, a mince-pie there,

  In lieu of bomb and hand-grenade;

  And foes forgot, that Christmastide,

  Their business was to kill the other side.

  Then, greatly shocked, you rose and said,

  ‘This is not my idea of War;

  On milk of human kindness fed,

  Our men will lose their taste for gore;

  All this unauthorized good-will

  Must be corrected by a bitter pill.

  And forth you strode with stiffened spine

  And met a Saxon in the mud

  (Not Anglo-) and with fell design

  To blast his joyaunce in the bud,

  And knock his rising spirits flat,

  You handed him a Punch and said, ‘Take that!’

  A smile upon his visage gleamed.

  Little suspecting your intent,

  He proffered what he truly deemed

  To be a fair equivalent –

  A bunch of fags of local brand

  And Deutschodoros from the Vaterland.

  You found them excellent, I hear;

  Let’s hope your gift had equal worth,

  Though meant to curb his Christmas cheer

  And check the interchange of mirth;

  I should be very glad to feel

  It operated for his inner weal.

  For there he found, our dingy friend,

  Amid the trench’s sobering slosh,

  What must have left him, by the end,

  A wiser, if a sadder, Bosch,

  Seeing himself with chastened mien

  In that pellucid well of Truth serene.

  Owen Seaman

  THREE

  Autumn 1914 in England

  The role of women, flag days, Zeppelin raids

  Many women in England immediately began to do what they could to support the war effort, although the attempts of some at emulating their military relatives in dress and demeanour were seen by others – including other women – as slightly absurd.

  For some, particularly young mothers with children, the coming of war brought real hardship, as the breadwinner was either called back into the army or volunteered. Separation allowances were paid, but they were often slow in coming. As the men were called away, their jobs, and the new production tasks demanded by war, were filled by women. For many who became munition workers, drivers or bus conductresses, it was their first opportunity of working outside the home and earning reasonable money. Others joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment as trainee nurses, or took on voluntary work. Everywhere women were knitting, making socks and gloves and comforters for the men at the front. But motherhood was not forgotten; the war, after all, was being fought to protect the freedom of future generations.

  The fear of invasion was joined by the reality of naval bombardment. In the middle of December 1914, Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on the east coast were attacked by naval guns; there were 500 civilian casualties. A month later there were zeppelin raids over Yarmouth, Cromer and King’s Lynn in East Anglia, and London suffered its first air attack at the end of May 1915.

  The Women

  Theirs not to go where martial strains are sounding,

  Guarding grim fortress-walls or city gate;

  Theirs not to breast the battle-tide surrounding,

  But ’mid life’s broken calm to watch and wait.

  Theirs not to feel the passion of o’ercoming,

  The pulsing beat of hearts that strive for right;

  Theirs but to live while fears, like wild birds homing,

  Come thro’ the shadows of each sleepless night.

  Theirs not to know where lov’d ones’ feet are marching,

  Where darling heads are pillow’d far away;

  Theirs but to look towards Heav’n’s great spaces arching,

  To breathe in loneliness dear names and pray.

  Theirs to stand fast, a mighty trust safe keeping,

  Theirs to flinch never, tho’ hard paths be trod,

  Theirs to hold high Hope’s lamp o’er woe and weeping,

  Theirs – Duty nobly done – the rest with God.

  Augusta Hancock

  Deportment for Women

  By One of Them

  Sisters, when fashion first decreed

  To our devoted sex

  That beauty must be broken-kneed

  And spinal cords convex;

  When sheathlike skirts without a crease

  Were potent to attract,

  Those were the piping times of peace

  When everybody slacked.

  But, since the menace of ‘The Day’

  Has commandeered the Nut,

  Since demi-saison modes display

  A military cut,

  It’s up to us to do our bit

  Each time we take the road,

  For, if we wear a warlike kit,

  The mien must match the mode.

  What! would you set a ‘forage cap’

  Upon a drooping brow?

  The feet that used to mince and tap

  Must stride with vigour now;

  No longer must a plastic crouch

  Debilitate the knees;

  We’ve finished with the ‘Slinker Slouch’;

  Heads up, girls, if you please!

  Jessie Pope

  Khaki

  Say, girls, I’ve just been round the town,

  It took my breath away

  To find that we have sisters still

  Who bow to fashion’s sway.

  For nice Spring hats and nice Spring gowns

  Are everywhere displayed,

  And purple seems to be just now

  The latest leading shade.

  These purple hats are not for us,

  Nor purple frocks and hose;

  Till times have changed, we’re proud to wear

  Our Country’s choice of clothes.

  No envy do we feel for those

  In purple hue arrayed.

  For surely khaki is, just now,

  A more becoming shade.

  I. Grindlay

  Leave your Change

  When you go down town a-shopping, for let’s say a blouse or hat,

  Or the hundred things a pretty woman wears,

  Will you kindly think a moment as you look on this or that,

  How many folk just now have family cares?

  Think of husbands, wives and widows who are now in deep distress,

  And who daily sit in sorrow, sad, and brood,

  How hard it is to manage, and how painful to confess

  That they haven’t got the wherewithal for food.

  When you’ve made your pretty purchase, be it pipe or cigarettes,

  Caps, collars, cuffs, umbrellas, boots or shoes,

  Will you ponder just a moment whilst your goods the
shopman gets,

  Of the many poor about you and their woes?

  Think a moment of the trouble that the war has brought about,

  And of all the many blessings you have got;

  Think of rents and coals and foodstuffs that the poor are nigh without,

  And be thankful that yours ain’t the poor man’s lot.

  Though your country hasn’t called you to go fighting ‘Kaiser Bill’;

  Though you haven’t perhaps been prompted to enlist,

  Still your country expects something, each has got some niche to fill,

  And it’s up to all and sundry to assist.

  So don’t pass this ‘Leave Your Change’ box, do not count it coppers lost,

  Simply say you’ll bank in Heaven for a while,

  Where Lloyd Georgie cannot tax it, where you know it won’t be lost,

  And the angels sweet will bless you with a smile.

  T. Clayton

  Britain’s Daughters

  They talk about the Tommy and the brave things he has done,

  The brave things he is just about to do.

  ’Tis mountains high the homage and the praise that he has won;

  The world acclaims him; he deserves it too.

  But what about our women, Britain’s daughters, passing fair;

  The finest race of women on the Earth?

  Have they been praised unsparingly? Have they received their share

  Of honour that should advertise their worth?

  We see them in the canteens where they toil so laughingly,

  And feed the hungry soldier every day.

  We see them on the ’buses where they tender chaffingly

  The humble fares along the jolting way.

  We find them donning breeches, milking cows and making cheese;

  How charming is the agricultural maid!

  She lets the men go fighting, and she tries so hard to please,

  And hides her fear whene’er she feels afraid.

  The chauffeuse is the neatest and the sweetest little girl,

  Bedecked in livery of olive green.

  She manages a motor-van or makes your senses whirl

  When taking out a pullman-limousine.

  The girl of no vocation’s doing all her good by stealth;

  It drains her purse alarmingly ’tis true;

  But be she poor or be she rich she’s thinking of the health

  Of Tommy – and that everlasting stew!

  Impossible it is for me to mention all the work

  That our belovèd women find to do.

  Suffice it then to say that they are never known to shirk,

  Though novelty has flown, and romance too.

  But of the valiant daughters of this dear old troubled land

  The nurses ’tis a Tommy ne’er forgets.

  God bless you and reward you, sisters of the Healing Hand;

  A life of honour, yours, with no regrets.

  Colin Mitchell

  Munition Girls

  Shells are but prayers for slaughter, cast in steel,

  A strange religion calls its devotees

  Cloistered with band and wheel

  To tell such beads as these!

  A twofold duty for a twofold need

  Summons the woman, in the self-same breath,

  To nurse, and yet to speed

  The loom of wounds and death.

  And Peace, the angel, as I see her move

  ’Mong these new purlieus, pale from half-despair,

  Shudders, yet must approve

  The eager labour here.

  And from her eyes the passion-mist will clear,

  And from her face will wash the blood-red stain,

  If at the end she hear

  The pæan, ‘War is slain!’

  The Deserters

  Where are the maids that used to lay my table

  And cook my meals and (sometimes) scrub the floor?

  Florrie and Maud and Emily and Mabel,

  All, all are gone to prosecute the War;

  In reeking vaults and mountain dells

  They tend their sheep and fill their shells,

  While my wife answers all the bells

  And no one shines my Sam Browne any more.

  Where is Elizabeth, whose eyes were argent?

  How like a home her hospital must be,

  Winnie’s a ‘Waac’, and bound to be a Sergeant

  Judging by how she dominated me

  (Only I hope she never stoops

  To talk like that to lady troops):

  And Maud, who dropped so many soups –

  What does she do with bombs and T.N.T.?

  Our car stands starving in the dusty garage,

  But Mabel drives a whacking Limousine;

  And when they sprinkle us with bits of barrage

  We know that much of it was made by Jean;

  Our income slowly disappears,

  While they get more than Brigadiers –

  No wonder now the agent sneers,

  ‘You can’t get girls to come to Turnham Green.’

  Do they look back and hope that we are happy,

  With no one left to fuss about our food;

  And when some foreman is extremely snappy

  Recall with tears my courtlier attitude?

  Rather, I ween, with mirthful hoots

  They think of Master cleaning boots,

  And thank their stars, the little brutes,

  They bear no more the yoke of housemaid-hood.

  And what will happen when the Bosch goes under,

  And all these women fling their swords away?

  Will the dear maids come back to us, I wonder?

  Shall I be able to afford their pay?

  And will they want Munitions rates?

  Ah, who can read the ruthless Fates?

  Meanwhile we wash the dirty plates

  And do our whack as willingly as they.

  A.P. Herbert

  The War Baby

  Bye, Baby Bunting,

  Daddy’s gone Hun-hunting,

  Brother’s in the Navy,

  Sister’s making gravy,

  Uncle’s working on the land

  Aunt is a munition hand,

  Grandpa minds the hens and cocks,

  Grandmamma is knitting socks,

  Mummy’s starting work afresh,

  And has to leave you at the crèche.

  [Pansy ran a Knitting Party]

  Pansy ran a Knitting Party.

  Oh! the things they knat.

  Pansy’s meetings never ended

  And results were simply splendid,

  I can swear to that,

  Since for weeks we used the socks she sent

  To take the place of wire entanglement.

  Hampden Gordon

  The Song of a Sock

  Knitted in the tram-car,

  Knitted in the street,

  Knitted by the fireside,

  Knitted in the heat;

  Knitted in Australia,

  Where the Wattle grows,

  Sent to you in France dear,

  Just to warm your toes.

  Knitted by the seaside,

  Knitted in the train,

  Knitted in the sunshine,

  Knitted in the rain.

  Knitted here and knitted there

  With the glad refrain,

  May the one who wears them

  Come back to us again.

  [The Flag-Day Girl is dressed in white]

  The Flag-Day Girl is dressed in white

  In sunshine or in sleet.

  She is a most attractive sight

  When viewed across the street;

  But don’t you go too near that charming seller

  Unless your name if Ritz P. Rockëfeller.

  Hampden Gordon

  For a Horse Flag Day

  (Dedicated to the ‘Blue Cross’)

  Buy a Flag!

  Give your copper, give your silver
, give your gold if you can:

  To help the wounded horses is to help the cause of man –

  Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag!

  Buy a Flag!

  They, created to a freedom wide and wingèd as the wind,

  Freely serve the higher brother of the master-hand and mind –

  Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag!

  Buy a Flag!

  Man has broken them to harness, but they give their wills to serve,

  Responsive to a kindliness in every thew and nerve –

  Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag!

  Buy a Flag!

  They are suffering in our service, yet are patient, brave, and true;

  Come, do your best for the horses, they have done so much for you! –

  Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag!

  Buy a Flag!

  Give your copper, give your silver, give your gold if you can:

  By their strength and noble patience they have served the cause of man –

  Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag! Buy a Flag!

  Jessie Annie Anderson

  The Everlasting Flag

  Lines written by one who endures much agony of mind on being required at frequent intervals to vend flags of a Saturday

  I’ve never seen the Dardanelles,

  I’ve never been to France,

  I’ve never nursed in Egypt,

  Nor recruited in Penzance.

  I’ve never helped in Africa

  To polish off De Wet,

  I’ve never even tried to raise

  A ‘Maisie’ Bed as yet.

  I do not write to papers, lines

  On Berlin on the Spree,

  And suggestively white feathers,

  Do not emanate from me.

  I’ve never warbled more than twice

  At territorial teas,

  I haven’t stumped up overmuch

  To send the navy peas.

  I do not often mend the hose

  Of Bantams in distress,

  (In fact I wish my own required

  The darning-needle less.)

  But if you think I’m conscienceless

  You certainly are wrong,

  For one department’s left in which