Hello, Soldier! Part 2

SISTER ANN.

I'M lyin' in a narrow bed, 'N' starin' at a wall.

Where all is white my plastered head Is whitest of it all.

My life is jist a whitewashed blank, With flamin' spurts of pain.

I dunno who I've got to thank, I've p'raps been trod on by a tank, Or caught out in the rain When skies were peltin' fish-plates, bricks 'n' lengths of bullock-chain.

I'm lyin' here, a sulky swine, 'N' hatin' of the bloke Who's in the doss right next to mine With 'arf his girders broke.

He never done no 'arm t me, 'N' he's pertickler ill; But I have got him snouted, see, 'N' all old earth beside but she Come with the chemist's swill, 'N' puts a kind, soft 'and on mine, 'n' all my nark is still.

She ain't a beaut, she's thirty two, She scales eleven stone; But, 'struth, I didn't think it true There was such women grown!

She's nurse 'n' sister, mum 'n' dad, 'N' all that straight 'n' fine In every girl I ever had.

When Gabr'el comes, 'n' all the glad Young saints are tipped the sign, You'll see this donah take her place, first angel in the line!

She's sweet 'n' cool, her touch is dew-- Wet lilies on yer brow.

(Jist 'ark et me what never knew Of lilies up to now).

She fits your case in 'arf a wink, 'N' knows how, why, 'n' where.

If you are five days gone in drink, N' hoverin' on perdition's brink, It is her brother there.

G.o.d how pain will take a man, and He has spoke with her!

I dunno if she ever sleeps Ten minutes at a stretch.

A dozen times a night she creeps To soothe a screamin' wretch Who has a tiger-headed Hun A-gnawin' at his chest.

'N' when the long, 'ard flght is won, 'N' he is still 'n' nearly done, She smiles down on his rest, 'N' minds me of a mother with a baby at her breast.

The curly kid we cuddled when There was no splendid row (It seemed a little matter then, But feels so wondrous now).

It's part of her. She's Joan iv Ark, Flo Nightingale, all fair 'N' d.i.n.k.u.m dames who've made their mark If she comes tip-toe in the dark, We blighters feel her there.

The whole pack perks up like a bird, 'n'

sorter takes the air.

She chats you in a 'Ighland botch; But if our Sis saw fit To pitch Hindoo instead of Scotch I'd get the hang of it, Because her heart it is that talks What now is plain to me.

At war where b.l.o.o.d.y murder stalks, 'N' Nick his hottest samples hawks.

I have been given to see What simple human kindness is, what brotherhood may be.

BRICKS.

DEAR Ned, I now take up my pen to write you these few lines, And hopin' how they find you fit. Gorbli', it seems an age Since Jumbo ducked the Port, 'n' drilled 'n'

polished to the nines, He walked his pork on Collins like a hero off the stage, Then hiked a rifle 'cross the sea this bleedin'

war to wage.

The things what's 'appened lately calls to Jumbo's mind that day Our push took on the Peewee pack, 'n'

belted out their lard, With twenty cops to top it off. But now I'm stowed away, A bullet in me gizzard where I took it good and hard, A-dealin'-stoush 'n' mullock to the Prussian flamin' Guard.

At Bullcoor mortal charnce had dumped a mutton-truck of us From good ole Port ker-flummox where we didn't orter be, All in a 'elpless hole-the Pug, Bill Carkeek, Son, 'n' Gus, Don, Steve, 'n' Jack, 'n' seven more, 'n', as it 'appens, me, With nothin' in since breakfast, 'n' a week to go for tea.

Worked loose from Caddy's bunch, we went it gay until we found We'd took to 'arf the ragin' German Hempire on our own.

Then down we went so 'umble, with our noses in the ground, Takin' cover in the rubble. If a German head was shown It was fare-the-well to Herman with a bullet through the bone.

We slogged the cows remorseless, 'n' they laid for us a treat.

We held that stinkin' cellar, though, 'n' when the day was done Son p.u.s.s.ied on his bingie where a Maxie trim 'n' neat Had spit out loaded lightnin', and he slugged a tubby Hun, Then choked a Fritzie with his dukes, 'n'

pinched the sooner's gun!

We rigged her on her knuckle-bones. Cri', how she lapped 'em up!

We hosed 'em out with livin' lead. That was the second day.

Me left eye I'd 'ave give for jest a bubble in a cup, Three fingers I'd 'ave parted for a bone I've flung away; But the butcher wasn't callin', 'n' the fountain didn't play.

T'was rotten mozzle, Neddo. We had blown out ever clip, 'N' 'blooed the hammunition for the little box of tricks.

Each took a batten in his fist. Sez Billy "Let 'er rip!"

But Son he claws his stubble. Sez--he: "Hold a brace of ticks."

Then "Yow!" he pipes 'n' "Strewth!" he sez, "it's bricks, you blighters, bricks!"

There's more than 'arf a million spilt where somethin' hit a pub; We creeps among 'n' sorts 'em, stack afore, 'n' stack behind; The Hun is comin' at us with his napper like a tub-- You couldn't 'ope to miss it, pickled, par- alysed, 'n' blind.

Sez Sonny: "Lay 'em open! Give 'em blotches on the rind!"

Then bricks was flyin' in the wind. Mine dinted Otto's chin; Ole Nosey got his brother, which he never more will roam.

When Ulrich stopped a Port bookay he rolled his alley in.

Their fire was somethin' fierce. Poor Son was blowin' blood 'n' foam, "Fill up," he coughs, "'n' plug 'em! S'elp me Gord, we're goin' 'ome!"

With bricks we drove right at 'em 'n' we w.a.n.ged 'em best we could.

'Twas either bed 'n' breakfast or a scribble and a wreath.

Haynes bust a Prussian's almond, took the bay'net where he stood, Then heaved his last 'arf-Brunswick, split the demon's grinnin' teeth, And Son went down in glory, with a German underneath!

We'd started out with gibbers in our clobber and our 'ats.

They gave us floatin' lead enough to stop an army cor.

We yelled like fiends, 'n' countered with a lovely flight of bats, Then rushed in close formation, heavin' cot- tages, n' tore Through blinded, bleedin' Bosches, 'n' lor love yeh, it was war!

We came peltin', headfirst, 'elpless, in a drain among a lot Of dirty, d.a.m.ned old Tommies (Gord! The best that ever blew!) Eight left of us, all punctured, each man holdin' what he'd got.

Me wild, a rat hole in me lung, but in me mauley, too, A bull-nosed brick with whiskers where no whiskers ever grew.

There's nothin' doin' now. I wear me blan- kets like a toff.

The way this fat nurse pets me, strewth, it's well to be so sick, A-dreamin' of our contract 'n' the way we pulled it off.

I reckon Haig is phonin' Hughes: "Hullo, there, Billy. Quick-- A dozen of the pushes and a thousan' tons of brick!"

MUD.

THIS war's a waste of slurry, and its at- mosphere is mud, All is bog from here to sunset. Wadin'

through We're the victims of a thicker sort of universal flood, With discomforts that old Noah never knew.

We have dubbed our trench The Cecil.

There's a bra.s.s-plate and a dome, And a quagmire where the doormat used to be, If you're calling, second Tuesday is our reg'- lar day at home, So delighted if you'll toddle in to tea!

There is mud along the corridors enough to bog a cow; In the air there hangs a musty kind of woof; There's a frog-pond in the parlour, and the kitchen is a slough.

She has neither doors nor windows, nor a roof.

When they post our bald somnambulist as missing from his flat We take soundings for the digger with a prop.

By the day the board is gratis, by the week it's half of that; For the season there's a corresponding drop.