Voices of Silence (52 page)

The Song of a Sock
,
Rising Sun
, no. 9, 25 January 1917. The poem is signed ‘Leongatha’, which is a town south-east of Melbourne.

[
The Flag-Day Girl is dressed in white
],
Our Girls in Wartime
.

For a Horse Flag Day
,
A Book of Poems for The Blue Cross Fund
.

The Everlasting Flag
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 5, no. 30, September 1917. The poem is signed ‘M.J.B.’. Christiaan Rudolph de Wet (1854–1922) was Commander in Chief of the Orange Free State forces during the Boer War, famed for the development of guerrila tactics. Bantams were battalions of volunteers below the regulation height of 5*3(. Many of the men were later integrated into regular battalions, and the Bantam battalions made up to strength with ordinary soldiers.

[
The Women’s Volunteer Reserve
],
Our Girls in Wartime
. The Women’s Volunteer Reserve, or WVR, was formed in March 1915 to assist other women’s organisations, and for miscellaneous tasks such as canteen work and hospital gardening.

Route March Sentiments
,
Ripples from the Ranks of the QMAAC
.

His ‘Bit’
,
The Lady
, vol. 66, no. 1699, 6 September 1917. The poem is signed ‘Q.S-H.’.

These Little Ones!
,
ibid.
, vol. 66, no. 1690, 5 July 1917.

National Service Lyrics
. Unidentified newspaper cutting in private scrapbook.

How It Takes You
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 4, no. 23, December 1916. The poem is signed ‘Edgar’.

[
I know a blithe blossom in Blighty
],
The Moonraker
.

Model Dialogues for Air-Raids
,
Punch
, vol. 153, 10 October 1917, reprinted in
From the Home Front
.

Beasts and Superbeasts
,
Punch
, vol. 148, 3 February 1915. Frederich von Bernhardi (1849– 1930) was the author of
Germany and the Next War
(1914); Heinrich von Treitschkei (1834–96) was the author of a popular multi-volume history of nineteenth-century Germany. Writing in 1916 in
My London Mission
, Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky, Kaiser Wilhelm’s Ambassador to London at the outbreak of war, criticised his country for its responsibility in bringing about the war, and spoke of ‘the spirit of Treitschkei and Bernhardi, which glorifies war as an end in itself and does not loathe it as an evil’ (see Wilson,
The Myriad Faces of War
, pp. 20, 22); General Alexander von Kluck commanded the German First Army that invaded Belgium in 1914; Ernst Lissauer was the author of the poem ‘Hasslied’, or ‘Hymn of Hate’, originally published in
Jugend
in 1914. In this he said that Germany’s real enemy was neither France nor Russia, but England: ‘He crouches behind the dark grey flood, | Full of envy, of rage, or craft, of gall, | Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood . . . | We will never forego our hate, | We have but one single hate, | We love as one, we hate as one, | We have one foe, and one alone –
ENGLAND
!’ (trans. Barbara Henderson in the
New York Times
. See Charles F. Horne, ed.,
Source Records of the Great War
, vol. 1, National Alumni, Indianapolis, 1923). Wilhelm is the Kaiser;
Punch
carried on a prolonged, but generally amiable, vendetta against the playwright George Bernard Shaw.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE NEW ARMIES GO TO FRANCE

Canadians
,
The ‘Country Life’ Anthology of Verse
.

To a Bad Correspondent in Camp
,
Punch
, vol. 149, 1 December 1915.

A Canadian to his Parents
,
ibid
., vol. 149, 1 September 1915.

The Catechism of the Kit
,
Blighty
, no. 14, 29 August 1916. A ‘pull-through’ is a cord, with an oiled rag at one end and a weight at the other, that was pulled through a rifle barrel in order to clean it. A ‘hussif’ is a men’s sewing kit.

The Inspection
,
Ballads of Field and Billet
. ‘Soldier’s Friend’ was metal polish used for cleaning brass.

Eye-wash
,
Punch
, vol. 150, 26 April 1916.

The Draft
,
Half-Hours at Helles
. A ‘tyro’ is a recruit.

Night Duty in the Station
,
The Menin Road
.

The Route March
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 2, 5 May 1915. Thomas Edward Brown (1830–97) was the author of the poem ‘My Garden’, with its opening line: ‘A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!’

A Halt on the March
,
The Chapman of Rhymes
.

The Squadron Takes the Ford
,
Ballads of Field and Billet
.

‘In the Pink’ – A Letter
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 1, 12 April 1915.

Sign Posts
,
‘New Church’ Times
, 22 May 1916.

War
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 1, no. 2, 26 February 1916.

Macfarlane’s Dug-out
,
Ballads of Battle
. At the end of stanza 6, Joseph Lee has made a note: ‘It may interest the reader to know that these lines are being written during a very considerable bombardment, in which one misses the friendly proximity of just such a dug-out as Macfarlane’s.’ At the end of the poem is a ‘Postscript. – In the trenches, as will be readily understood, one has no continual abiding place. Consequently the dug-out of the picture is not the dug-out of the poem, and when I last looked in upon Macfarlane, he was swinging contentedly in a hammock of his own construction. It unfortunately falls to me to add a postscript of sadder import. Since the Advance of 25th September [1915, the opening of the Battle of Loos], my comrade has been counted among the missing.’

Music in a Dug-out
,
War Daubs
.

Rats
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 2, 25 December 1916.

The Chats’ Parade
,
Aussie
, no. 3, 8 March 1918. The second line of stanza 4 ends in ‘bien’, an error overlooked in the makeshift circumstances of its original publication.

The All-Powerful
,
Rising Sun
, no. 13, 8 February 1917. The poem is signed ‘X.Y.Z.’. Number Nine was an aperient administered to the men, used also as a stock remedy for all doubtful ailments or ills caused by malingering.

Stand-to!
,
Ballads of Battle
.

At Dawn in France
,
The Undying Splendour
.

To Those Who Wait
,
Beaumont Bull
, no. 1, 11 February 1918.

Tommy and Fritz
,
Ballads of Battle. Die Wacht am Rhein
translates as ‘The line stands here’ and was the title of a popular German patriotic song whose chorus was ‘Land of our Fathers, have no fear. | Your watch is true, the line stands here’.

The Soldier’s Dog
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 6, September 1915.

Noon
,
Ardours and Endurances
.

To a Choir of Birds
,
More Songs by the Fighting Men
.

Shelley in the Trenches
,
The Undying Splendour
. The poem is dated 2 May 1916.

Love and War
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 3, no. 2, 6 March 1916. Stanza 1, l. 3, has ‘too’ in place of ‘’tis’.

To Minnie
,
Somme-Times
, vol. 1, no. 1, 31 July 1916.

At Stand Down
,
The Greater Love
.

The Night Hawks
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 1, no. 1, 12 February 1916. The poem is signed ‘By a Pioneer’. ‘Foresters’ are The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).

The Romance of Place-Names
,
Punch
, vol. 155, 2 October 1918. Reprinted in
The Poets in Picardy
, where it is entitled ‘Stinking Farm: By a Picardy Poet of the Future’, and the subtitle is altered to read: ‘This may be rather embarrassing for the Picardy Poet of the future.’

Sounds by Night
,
War Daubs
. The poem is subscribed ‘France 1917’.

The Song of the Reconnoitering Patrol
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 4, 12 July 1915.

[
I oft go out at night-time
],
Soldier Songs
.

A True Tale of the Listening Post
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 5, September 1915. R.E.K. was Raymond E. Knight, who died of wounds in July 1916.

No Man’s Land
,
Spectator
, vol. 116, no. 4580, 8 April 1916.

On Patrol
,
The Greater Love
.

CHAPTER FIVE: OUT OF THE LINE

The Dawn
,
Soldier Songs
.

Back in Billets
,
The Muse in Arms
. The poem is dated February 1915. A Wolsey valise is a warm vest named after its well-known manufacturer.

Gonnehem
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 5, August 1915. Reprinted in
A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad
.

The Billet
,
Ballads of Battle
. Joseph Lee has added the note to ‘Johnnie Cope’: ‘There is something slightly sardonic in the fact that the old Jacobite rant, “Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet?” which was used for the berousing and belabouring of the Whigs, should now do duty as Reveille to a Highland regiment. So, at least, it seems to one at seven o’clock of a cold winter’s morning!’ Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) wrote mystery and horror poems and short stories; Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914), described as the Master of the Macabre, was the author of
The Devil’s Dictionary
.

The Camp in the Sands
,
Ballads of Field and Billet
.

Letters to Tommy
,
ibid
.

A Letter from Home
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 4, no. 23, December 1916.

Letters Home
,
Rhymes of the Red Triangle
.

The Dilemma
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 7, October 1915.

A Literary War Worker
,
Punch
, vol. 149, 24 November 1915.

The Sub.
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 5, 10 April 1917.

[
There was an old dame at La Bassée
],
The Dump
, vol. 2, Christmas 1916.

The Green Estaminet
,
Punch
, vol. 154, 17 April 1918.

The Penitent
,
Ballads of Battle
. Noove Chapelle was Neuve Chapelle, a battle fought on the Western Front in March 1915; Lord Kitchener’s two commandments relate to a document given to all embarking troops, in which he said: ‘In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.’

Concert
,
Rhymes of the Red Triangle
. George Robey (1869–1954), described as the Prime Minister of Mirth, played in the hugely popular revue ‘The Bing Boys Are Here’, a show that contained the song ‘If you were the only girl in the world’.

Going up the Line
,
New Statesman
, vol. 14, no. 350, 20 December 1919.

Back to the Trenches
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 5, August 1915.

CHAPTER SIX: FLANDERS, GALLIPOLI AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Lines Written in a Fire-Trench
,
Easter at Ypres
, 1915.

Poison
,
The Poetical Works
, sub-titled ‘Poems of War and Peace’.

[
There was a little Turk, and Baghdad was his home
],
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 4, 5 March 1917.

Y Beach
, published in Alan Moorehead,
Gallipoli
, where he states that it appeared in an Army broadsheet.

For the Gallipoli Peninsula
,
Summerdown Camp Journal
, no. 16, 22 January 1916.

Fighting Hard
,
My Army, O, My Army
.

Anzac Cove
,
Songs of a Campaign
.

Twitting the Turk
,
Punch
, vol. 169, 1 September 1915. Reprinted in
Half-Hours at Helles
. Libby was a make of tinned dried milk.

A Dug-out Lament
,
Rising Sun
, no. 12, 5 February 1917. The poem is dated November 1915, and there is a note that it is from the Anzac Book MSS. ‘Keating’s powder does the trick | Kills all Bugs and Fleas off quick.’

The Hospital Ship
,
The Muse in Arms
.

The Blizzard
,
Front Line Lyrics
.

The Unburied
,
The Anzac Book
. The poem is signed ‘M.R., N.Z. Headquarters’.

Evacuation of Gallipoli
, taken from the collection of war poems,
The Digger Poets of the 1st AIF
, made by Kevin F. Tye for his Master’s Degree in Australian Literature, University of Sydney, 1988; Australian War Memorial Archives, Canberra. Published in
From Gallipoli to Gaza
.

Mudros after the Evacuation
,
Poems
.

The Graves of Gallipoli
,
The Anzac Book
. The poem is signed ‘L.L.’.

Gallipoli – In Memoriam
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 3, no. 15, March 1916.

Mesopotamian Alphabet
,
BEF Times
, 20 January 1917. Above the alphabet is the note: ‘The following has been sent us from the Indian Army by one of our old divisional friends.’ ‘S&T’ is probably Supply and Transport.

Salonika in November
,
Youth’s Heritage
.

June in Egypt, 1916
,
Clouds and the Sun
.

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONSCRIPTION, PROTEST AND PRISONERS

In the Morning
,
Soldier Songs
. At Hulloch Copse the British broke through the German lines, but were unable to exploit their success.

After Loos
,
ibid
.