Voices of Silence (15 page)

The dawn comes creeping o’er the plains,

The saffron clouds are streaked with red,

I hear the creaking limber chains,

I see the drivers raise their reins

And urge their weary mules ahead.

And men go up and men go down,

The marching hosts are grand to see

In shrapnel-shivered trench and town,

In spinneys where the leaves of brown

Are falling on the dewy lea.

Lonely and still the village lies,

The houses sleeping, the blinds all drawn.

The road is straight as the bullet flies,

And villagers fix their waking eyes

On the shrapnel smoke that shrouds the dawn.

Out of the battle, out of the night,

Into the dawn and the blush of day,

The road that takes us back from the fight,

The road we love, it is straight and white,

And it runs from the battle, away, away.

Patrick MacGill

We’re in billets again, and to-night, if you please,

I shall strap myself up in a Wolsey valise.

What’s that, boy? Your boots give you infinite pain?

You can chuck them away: we’re in billets again.

We’re in billets again now and, barring alarms,

There’ll be no occasion for standing to arms,

And you’ll find if you’d many night-watches to keep

That the hour before daylight’s the best hour for sleep.

We’re feasting on chocolate, cake, currant buns,

To a faint German-band obbligato of guns,

For I’ve noticed, wherever the regiment may go,

That we always end up pretty close to the foe.

But we’re safe out of reach of trench mortars and snipers

Five inches south-west of the ‘Esses’ in Ypres;

– Old Bob, who knows better, pronounces it Yper,

But don’t argue the point now – you’ll waken the sleeper.

Our host brings us beer up, our thirst for to quench,

So we’ll drink him good fortune in English and French:

– Bob, who finds my Parisian accent a blemish,

Goes one better himself in a torrent of Flemish.

It’s a fortnight on Friday since Christopher died,

And John’s at Boulogne with a hole in his side,

While poor Harry’s got lost, the Lord only knows where; –

May the Lord keep them all and ourselves in His care.

. . . Mustn’t think we don’t mind when a chap gets laid out,

They’ve taken the best of us, never a doubt;

But with life pretty busy and death rather near

We’ve no time for regret any more than for fear.

. . . Here’s a health to our host, Isidore Deschildre,

Himself and his wife and their plentiful childer,

And the brave
aboyeur
who bays our return;

More power to his paws when he treads by the churn!

You may speak of the Ritz or the Curzon (Mayfair)

And maintain that they keep you in luxury there:

If you’ve laid for six weeks on a water-logged plain,

Here’s the acme of comfort, in billets again.

Charles Scott-Moncrieff

Of Gonnehem it shall be said

That we arrived there late and worn

With marching, and were given a bed

Of lovely straw. And then at morn

On rising from deep sleep saw dangle –

Shining in the sun to spangle,

The all-blue heaven – branch loads of red

Bright cherries which we bought to eat,

Dew-wet, dawn-cool, and sunny sweet.

There was a tiny court-yard, too,

Wherein one shady walnut grew.

Unruffled peace the farm encloses –

I wonder if beneath that tree,

The meditating hens still be.

Are the white walls now gay with roses?

Does the small fountain yet run free?

I wonder if that dog still dozes . . .

Some day we must go back to see.

F.W. Harvey

A roof that hardly holds the rain;

Walls shaking to the hurricane;

Great doors upon their hinges creaking;

Great rats upon the rafters squeaking –

A midden in the courtyard reeking –

Yet oft I’ve sheltered, snug and warm,

Within that friendly old French farm!

To trudge in from the soaking trench –

The blasts that bite, the rains that drench –

To loosen off your ponderous pack,

To drop the harness from your back,

Deliberate pull each muddy boot

From each benumbed, frost-bitten foot;

To wrap your body in your blanket,

To mutter o’er a ‘Lord be thankit!’

Sink out of sight below the straw,

Then – Owre the hills and far awa’!

Perchance to waken from your sleep,

And hear the big guns growling deep,

Turn on your side, but breathe a prayer

For beggars you have left up ‘there’.

Then in the morn to stretch your legs,

And hear the hens cluck o’er their eggs;

And chanticleer’s bestirring blare;

The whinnying of the Captain’s mare;

Contented lowing of the kine,

Complacent grunting of the swine;

Chirping of birds beneath the eaves,

Whisper of winds among the leaves,

And – sound that soul of man rejoices –

The pleasant hum of women’s voices –

With all the cheery dins that be

In a farmyard community;

While sunlight bursting thro’ the thatch

Burns in the black barn, patch and patch.

By now your eyes and ears you ope –

The pipes are skirling, ‘Johnnie Cope’ –

And you arise to toil and trouble,

And certainly to ‘double! double!’ –

Of the day’s drills, must grudged of all

That lagging hour called ‘physical!’

Breakfast, of tea, and bread, and ham,

With just a colouring of jam;

Or, if you have the sous to pay,

A feast of
œufs
and
café-au-lait
.

Comes ten o’clock and we fall in,

With rifle cleaned, and shaven chin;

Once more we work the ‘manual’ through,

And then ‘drill in platoons’ we do

Till one, or maybe even two.

At last ‘cook-house’ the pipers play,

And so we dine as best we may.

And now a shout that never fails

To fetch us forth, ‘Here come the mails!’ –

While one rejoices, t’other rails

Because he has received no letter –

Next time the Fates may use him better!

Then comes an hour beneath a tree,

With ‘Omar Khayyam’ on your knee,

While wanton winds, in idle sport,

Bombard you after harmless sort

With apple blossoms from the bough –

Ah! here is Paradise enow!

’Tis now that mystic hour of night

When – parcels open – no respite

Is given to cake, sweetmeat, sardine;

Our zest would turn a gourmet green

With envy, could he only see

The meal out here, that’s yclep ‘tea’.

The night has come, and all are hearty,

Being exempt from a ‘working party’:

And so we gather round the fire

To chat, and presently conspire

To pass an hour with song and story –

The grave, the gay, ghostly or gory, –

A tale, let’s say, both weird and fierce,

By Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce,

Then Skerry – Peace be to his Shade! –

May play us Gounod’s ‘Serenade’,

And, gazing thro’ the broken beams,

Perchance we see the starry gleams.

But ‘Lights-out!’ sounds; ‘Good nights’ are said,

And so we bundle off to bed.

Sweet dreams infest each drowsy head

And kindly Ghosts that work no harm

Flit round about that old French farm!

Joseph Lee

Down in the hollow of the dunes one night

We made our bivouac; serene and bright

The autumn day drew to its early close.

While still the west was red, the moon arose

And flung the witchery of her silver lamp

Over the bustle of our hasty camp.

Beyond the crested dunes the windy sea

Murmured all night, now near, now distantly:

And eerily around us we could hark

The grass’s widespread whisper in the dark,

As if the Little People of the Sands

Gathered about us in their stealthy bands.

Within the dip where our encampment lay

The lines of weary horses munched their hay

Or pawed the sand with quick, uneasy hoof;

A glowing cook-fire flickered red aloof,

From which a drift of soft blue smoke was blown;

The loudest voice soon sank to undertone,

Amidst the empty space ’twixt sand and sky,

Ruled by the moon that rose so splendidly.

All night around the camp our watch we kept,

Posted on crests of sandy billows; swept

From eve till dawn by the unbroken wind,

Our eyes towards the dark; our camp behind.

W. Kersley Holmes

Oh, friends past our deserving,

Discovered everywhere,

Who load us lucky fellows

With things to eat and wear,

Your kindness knows no limit – you seem sincerely vexed

That ever you need ask us – ‘What can we send you next?’

For packages of pastry,

For cigarettes and sweets,

For cakes and scones and butter,

For savoury bakemeats,

For garments that you knit us – we thank you thousandfold,

And if you ask, ‘What else, now?’ – why shouldn’t you be told?

When from parade returning,

We put our rifles by,

There’s spring in every footstep,

And hope in every eye;

We hurry to our billets – yet, hungry and athirst,

We don’t stampede for dinner – we look for letters first.

You’d laugh, or sigh, to notice

The pleasure fellows show

To read their war addresses

In writing that they know –

Oh, if you wish us kindly, who fight – or hope to fight –

Don’t wonder what to send us; we want you just to
write
.

W. Kersley Holmes

We sit in our tent and we’re feeling forlorn,

It’s raining outside and we’re sorry we’re born,

All the ‘rookies’ are sad and the trained men are quiet,

There’s not a man there who is game for a riot.

But hark! down the lines a rough voice is calling,

’Tis the Orderly Corporal standing there bawling,

And the words that he shouts amoving have set us,

‘Come out of your tents and fall in for your letters’.

There’s one for Bill Stewart from his darling Polly,

And off to his tent he goes looking jolly.

And so it goes on till they’re all given away,

Tho’ there’s many a chap who’s forgotten to-day.

Then back they all go and you can’t hear a sound

As they read them while sitting on the rough ground.

And those who have got none look on with sad eyes,

And envy the chaps who have captured a prize.

So while we do our bit to keep home fires burning,

Don’t forget it’s your letters for which we are yearning,

In billet or camp, and wherever we roam,

There’s nothing we prize like ‘a letter from home’.

Will Leslie

Come, let me write to Melisande,

To Melisande whose moth-feet are even now

Passing, brogue-clad,

Over the valerian-coloured meadows . . .

The Postman will take the letter (with luck)

Up the street,

Up the little zig-zag village street,

Past old Ben’s, the Butchers,

Who owes me two-and-fourpence;

And past the ‘Yellow Unicorn’

Where Melisande is very probably

Getting off with that annoying fellow Bert.

P’raps I will write to Mother instead.

Hampden Gordon

Erstwhile, in pedagogic garb,

I felt the urgings of the Muse,

But now I feel Love’s stinging barb,

And, loving, know not where to choose.

For Julia’s charms my heart entwine,

Alas! I own her kisses sweet –

Yet while I strive to make her mine,

Long for the arms of Marguerite.

Her unforgettable embrace

Makes throb my heart, my pulses beat,

Yet while I gaze on her fair face

I fly, in winged fancy fleet,

To where my Julia stands aglow

For me, her amorous dolt, to fly

From fettering wires and indents slow,

To lay me fettered to her eye.