Part 7

As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea; Cows weren't allowed in the trenches--got out of the habit, y'see.) As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten: "Come on, lads!" he shouts, "and we'll show 'em." And he sprang to the head of the men. Then some bally thing seemed to trip him, and he fell on his face with a slam. . . . Oh, he died like a true British soldier, and the last word he uttered was "Damn!" And hang it! I loved the old fellow, and something just burst in my brain, And I cared no more for the bullets than I would for a shower of rain. 'Twas an awf'ly funny sensation (I say, this is jolly nice tea); I felt as if something had broken; by gad! I was suddenly free. Free for a glorified moment, beyond regulations and laws, Free just to wallow in slaughter, as the chap of the Stone Age was. So on I went joyously nursing a Berserker rage of my own, And though all my chaps were behind me, feeling most frightf'ly alone; With the bullets and shells ding-donging, and the "krock" and the swish of the shrap; And I found myself humming "Ben Bolt" . . . (Will you pass me the sugar, old chap? Two lumps, please). . . . What was I saying? Oh yes, the jolly old dash; We simply ripped through the barrage, and on with a roar and a crash. My fellows--Old Nick couldn't stop 'em. On, on they went with a yell, Till they tripped on the Boches' sand-bags,--nothing much left to tell: A trench so tattered and battered that even a rat couldn't live; Some corpses tangled and mangled, wire you could pass through a sieve. The jolly old guns had bilked us, cheated us out of our show, And my fellows were simply yearning for a red mix-up with the foe. So I shouted to them to follow, and on we went roaring again, Battle-tuned and exultant, on in the leaden rain. Then all at once a machine gun barks from a bit of a bank, And our Major roars in a fury: "We've got to take it on flank." He was running like fire to lead us, when down like a stone he comes, As full of "typewriter" bullets as a pudding is full of plums. So I took his job and we got 'em. . . . By gad! we got 'em like rats; Down in a deep shell-crater we fought like Kilkenny cats. 'Twas pleasant just for a moment to be sheltered and out of range, With someone you _SAW_ to go for--it made an agreeable change. And the Boches that missed my bullets, my chaps gave a bayonet jolt, And all the time, I remember, I whistled and hummed "Ben Bolt".

Well, that little job was over, so hell for leather we ran, On to the second line trenches,--that's where the fun began. For though we had strafed 'em like fury, there still were some Boches about, And my fellows, teeth set and eyes glaring, like terriers routed 'em out. Then I stumbled on one of their dug-outs, and I shouted: "Is anyone there?" And a voice, "Yes, one; but I'm wounded," came faint up the narrow stair; And my man was descending before me, when sudden a cry! a shot! (I say, this cake is delicious. You make it yourself, do you not?) My man? Oh, they killed the poor devil; for if there was one there was ten; So after I'd bombed 'em sufficient I went down at the head of my men, And four tried to sneak from a bunk-hole, but we cornered the rotters all right; I'd rather not go into details, 'twas messy that bit of the fight. But all of it's beastly messy; let's talk of pleasanter things: The skirts that the girls are wearing, ridiculous fluffy things, So short that they show. . . . Oh, hang it! Well, if I must, I must. We cleaned out the second trench line, bomb and bayonet thrust; And on we went to the third one, quite calloused to crumping by now; And some of our fellows who'd passed us were making a deuce of a row; And my chaps--well, I just couldn't hold 'em; (It's strange how it is with gore; In some ways it's just like whiskey: if you taste it you must have more.) Their eyes were like beacons of battle; by gad, sir! they _COULDN'T_ be calmed, So I headed 'em bang for the bomb-belt, racing like billy-be-damned. Oh, it didn't take long to arrive there, those who arrived at all; The machine guns were certainly chronic, the shindy enough to appal. Oh yes, I omitted to tell you, I'd wounds on the chest and the head, And my shirt was torn to a gun-rag, and my face blood-gummy and red. I'm thinking I looked like a madman; I fancy I felt one too, Half naked and swinging a rifle. . . . God! what a glorious "do". As I sit here in old Piccadilly, sipping my afternoon tea, I see a blind, bullet-chipped devil, and it's hard to believe that it's me; I see a wild, war-damaged demon, smashing out left and right, And humming "Ben Bolt" rather loudly, and hugely enjoying the fight. And as for my men, may God bless 'em! I've loved 'em ever since then: They fought like the shining angels; they're the pick o' the land, my men. And the trench was a reeking shambles, not a Boche to be seen alive-- So I thought; but on rounding a traverse I came on a covey of five; And four of 'em threw up their flippers, but the fifth chap, a sergeant, was game, And though I'd a bomb and revolver he came at me just the same. A sporty thing that, I tell you; I just couldn't blow him to hell, So I swung to the point of his jaw-bone, and down like a ninepin he fell. And then when I'd brought him to reason, he wasn't half bad, that Hun; He bandaged my head and my short-rib as well as the Doc could have done. So back I went with my Boches, as gay as a two-year-old colt, And it suddenly struck me as rummy, I still was a-humming "Ben Bolt". And now, by Jove! how I've bored you. You've just let me babble away; Let's talk of the things that _MATTER_--your car or the newest play. . . .

The Mourners

I look into the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed.

The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain, The dead I do not see.

The slain I _WOULD_ not see . . . and so I lift My eyes from out the shambles where they lie; When lo! a million woman-faces drift Like pale leaves through the sky.

The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears; But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare Into the shadow of the coming years Of fathomless despair.

And some are young, and some are very old; And some are rich, some poor beyond belief; Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould Of everlasting grief.

They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face; And then I see one weeping with the rest, Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . . Oh eyes I love the best!

Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn, And there's the plain of battle writhing red: God pity them, the women-folk who mourn! How happy are the dead!

L'Envoi

My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready, My word-battalions marching verse by verse; Here stanza-companies are none too steady; There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse. And as in marshalled order I review them, My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray, My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them Immortal visions of an epic day.

It seems I'm in a giant bowling-alley; The hidden heavies round me crash and thud; A spire snaps like a pipe-stem in the valley; The rising sun is like a ball of blood. Along the road the "fantassins" are pouring, And some are gay as fire, and some steel-stern. . . . Then back again I see the red tide pouring, Along the reeking road from Hebuterne.

And once again I seek Hill Sixty-Seven, The Hun lines grey and peaceful in my sight; When suddenly the rosy air is riven-- A "coal-box" blots the "boyou" on my right. Or else to evil Carnoy I am stealing, Past sentinels who hail with bated breath; Where not a cigarette spark's dim revealing May hint our mission in that zone of death.

I see across the shrapnel-seeded meadows The jagged rubble-heap of La Boiselle; Blood-guilty Fricourt brooding in the shadows, And Thiepval's chateau empty as a shell. Down Albert's riven streets the moon is leering; The Hanging Virgin takes its bitter ray; And all the road from Hamel I am hearing The silver rage of bugles over Bray.

Once more within the sky's deep sapphire hollow I sight a swimming Taube, a fairy thing; I watch the angry shell flame flash and follow In feather puffs that flick a tilted wing; And then it fades, with shrapnel mirror's flashing; The flashes bloom to blossoms lily gold; The batteries are rancorously crashing, And life is just as full as it can hold.

Oh spacious days of glory and of grieving! Oh sounding hours of lustre and of loss! Let us be glad we lived you, still believing The God who gave the cannon gave the Cross. Let us be sure amid these seething passions, The lusts of blood and hate our souls abhor: The Power that Order out of Chaos fashions Smites fiercest in the wrath-red forge of War. . . . Have faith! Fight on! Amid the battle-hell Love triumphs, Freedom beacons, all is well.

About the Author

Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston, England, but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894. Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk, and became famous for his poems about this region, which are mostly in his first two books of poetry. He wrote quite a bit of prose as well, and worked as a reporter for some time, but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems. He travelled around the world quite a bit, and died 11 September 1958 in France.

Service's Books of Poetry:

The Spell of the Yukon (1907) a.k.a. Songs of a Sourdough Ballads of a Cheechako (1909) Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912) Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (1916) Ballads of a Bohemian (1921) Bar-Room Ballads (1940) The Complete Poems (1947?) [This is simply a compilation of the six books.]

[Note: A Sourdough is an old-timer, while a Cheechako is a newbie.]

A few other books by Robert W. Service:

The Trail of '98--A Northland Romance (1910)

Ploughman of the Moon (1945) | A two-volume

Harper of Heaven (1948) | autobiography.

End of Project Gutenberg's Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, by Robert W. Service