'Hello Soldier!' by Edward Dyson (ink ebook reader TXT) 📕

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 gor-
forsaken '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 Twins-
Bill '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 partnership-
Jim 'n' Bill

Mates we was when we was kids;
Camp, 'n' ship, 'n' Pyramids,
Him 'n' me
Hung together, 'n' we tore
Up the heights from Helles shore,
Bill a long 'arf head afore,
Fine to see!

Then it was we took a touch-
Simple puncture, nothin' much;
But we lay
'N' we stays the count, it seems,
In a sorter realm of dreams
Where the sun infernal gleams
Night 'n' day;

Boilin', fryin' achin', dumb,
Waitin' till the stretchers come,
Patiently.
I hangs on to 'arf a cup.
Which I wants ole Bill to sup.
Damn if he ain't savin' up
His for me!

When they come to lift my head
I am softly kiddin' dead,
For a game,
So's they'll first take on his gills.
Over, though, me scheme he spills-
Bli'me, this ole take-down Bill's
Done the same!

But he isn't kiddin' now,
And it knocks me anyhow
Seein' him.
We was both agreed before,
Though it got 'em by the score,
Two was goin' to beat this war-
But 'n' Jim.

Mate o' mine, yiv stayed it through.
Hard luck, Bill-for me 'n' you
Hard 'n' grim.
They have got me Cobber true,
But I'm stickin' tight ez glue....
Bill, there's one who'll plug for two-
It is Jim!


THE CRUSADERS.

WHAT price yer humble, Dicko Smith,
in gaudy putties girt,
With sand-blight in his optics, and much
leaner than he started,
Round the 'Oly Land cavorting in three-
quarters of a shirt,
And imposin' on the natives ez one Dick
the Lion 'Earted?

We are drivin' out the infidel, we're hittin'
up the Turk,
Same ez Richard slung his right across the
Saracen invader
In old days of which I'm readin'. Now
we're gettin' in our work,
'N' what price me nibs, I ask yeh, ez a
qualified Crusader!

'Ere I am, a thirsty Templar in the fields of
Palestine,
Where that hefty little fighter, Bobby
Sable, smit the heathen,
And where Richard Coor de Lion trimmed
the Moslem good 'n' fine,
'N' he took the belt from Saladin, the
slickest Dago breathin'.

There's no plume upon me helmet, 'n' no red
cross on me chest,
'N' so fur they haven't dressed me in a
swanking load of metal;
We've no 'Oly Grail I know of, but we do
our little best
With a jamtin, 'n' a billy, 'n' a battered
ole mess kettle.

Quite a lot of guyver missin' from our brand
of chivalry;
We don't make a pert procession when
we're movin' up the forces;
We've no pretty, pawin' stallion, 'n' no
pennants flowin' free,
'N' no giddy, gaudy bedquilts make a
circus of the 'orses.

We 'most always slip the cattle 'n' we cut out
all the dog
When it fairly comes to buttin' into battle's
hectic fever,
Goin' forward on our wishbones, with our
noses in the bog,
'N' we 'eave a pot iv blazes at the cursed
unbeliever.

Fancy-dress them old Crusaders wore,
and alwiz kep' a band.
What we wear's so near to nothin' that it's
often 'ardly proper,
And we swings a tank iv iron scrap across
the 'Oly Land
From a dinkie gun we nipped ashore the
other side of Jopper.

We ain't ever very natty, for the climate here
is hot;
When it isn't liquid mud the dust is thicker
than the vermin.
Ten to one our bold Noureddin is some wad-
dlin' Turkish pot,
'N' the Saladin we're on to is a snortin'
red-eyed German.

But be'old the eighth Crusade, 'n' Dicko
Smith is in the van,
Dicko Coor de Lion from Carlton what
could teach King Dick a trifle,
For he'd bomb his Royal Jills from out his
baked-pertater can,
Or he'd pink him full of leakage with a
quaint repeatin' rif1e.

We have sunk our claws in Mizpah, and
Siloam is in view.
By my 'alidom from Agra we will send the
Faithful reelin'!
Those old-timers botched the contract, but we
mean to put it through.
Knights Templars from Balmain, the Port,
Monaro, Nhill, andl Ealin'.

We 'are wipin' up Jerus'lem; we were ready
with a hose
Spoutin' lead, a dandy cleaner that you bet
you can rely on;
And Moss Isaacs, Cohn, and Cohen, Moses,
Offelbloom 'n' those
Can all pack their bettin' bags, and come
right home again to Zion.


PEACE, BLESSED PEACE.

HERE in the flamin' thick of thick of things,
With Death across the way, 'n' traps
What little Fritz the German flings
Explodin' in yer lunch pe'aps,
It ain't all glory for a bloke',
It ain't all corfee 'ot and stoo,
Nor wavin' banners in the smoke,
Or practisin' the bay'net stroke--
We has our little troubles, too!

Here's Trigger Ribb bin seein' red
'N' raisin' Cain because he had,
Back in the caverns iv his 'ead,
A 'oller tooth run ravin' mad.
Pore Trigger up 'n' down the trench
Was jiggin' like a blithered loan,
'N' every time she give a wrench
You orter seen the beggar blench,
You orter 'eard him play a toon.

The sullen shells was pawin' blind,
A-feelin' for us grim as sin,
While now 'n' then we'd likely find
A dizzy bomb come limpin' in.
But Trigger simply let 'er sizz.
He 'ardly begged to be excused.
This was no damn concern of his.
He twined a muffler round his phiz,
'N' fearful was the words he used.

Lest we be getting' cock-a-whoop
Ole 'Ans tries out his box of tricks.
His bullets all around the coop
Is peckin' like a million chicks.
But Trigger when they barks his snout
Don't sniff at it. He won't confess
They're on the earth--ignores the clout,
'N' makes the same old sung about
His brimmin' mug of bitterness.

They raided us there in the mud
One day afore the dead sun rose.
Me oath, the mess of stuff and blood
Would give a slaughterman the joes!
And when the scrap is past and done,
Where's Trigger Ribb? The noble youth
Has got his bay'net in a Hun,
While down his cheeks the salt tears run.
Sez he to me "Gorbli'--this tooth!"

A shell hoist Trigger in a tree.
We found him motherin' his jor.
"If this ache's goin' on," sez he,
"So 'elp me, it'll spoil the war!"
Five collared Trigger on his perch,
They wired his molar to a bough,
Then give the anguished one a lurch,
'N' down he pitches. From that birch
His riddled tooth is hangin' now.

This afternoon it's merry 'ell;
Grenades is comin' by the peck;
A big gun times us true 'n well,
And, oh! we gets it in the neck.
They lick out flames hat reach a mile,
The drip of lead will never cease.
But Trigger's pottin' all the while;
He sports a fond 'n' foolish smile-
"Thank Gord," he sez, "a bit of peace!"


THE HAPPY GARDENERS.

WE were storemen, clerks and packers on
an ammunition dump
Twice the size of Cootamundra, and the goods
we had to hump
They were bombs as big as water-butts, and
cartridges in tons,
Shells that looked like blessed gasmains, and
a line in traction-guns.

We had struck a warehouse dignity in dealing
with the stocks.
It was, "Sign here, Mr. Eddie!" "Clarkson,
forward to the socks!"
Our floor-walker was a major, with a nozzle
like a peach,
And a stutter in his Trilbies; and a limping
kind of speech.

We were off at eight to business, we were free
for lunch at one,
And we talked of new Spring fashions, and the
brisk trade being done.
After five we sought our dugouts lying snug
beneath the hill,
Each with hollyhocks before it and geraniums
on the sill.

Singing "Home, Sweet home," we swept,
and scrubbed, and dusted up the place,
Then smoked out on the doorstep in the twi-
light's tender grace.
After which with spade and rake we sought
our special garden plot,
And we 'tended to the cabbage and the shrink-
ing young shallot.

So