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
The Camp in the Sands
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
Letters to Tommy
Oh, friends
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
The Camp in the Sands
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
Letters to Tommy
Oh, friends
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