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Ballads of a Bohemian

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<h2> III </h2> Near Albert, February 1915. Over the spine of the ridge a horned moon of reddish hue peers through the splintered, hag-like trees. Where the trenches are, rockets are rising, green and red. I hear the coughing of the Maxims, the peevish nagging of the rifles, the boom of a "heavy" and the hollow sound of its exploding shell. Running the car into the shadow of a ruined house, I try to sleep. But a battery starts to blaze away close by, and the flame lights up my shelter. Near me some soldiers are in deep slumber; one stirs in his sleep as a big rat runs over him, and I know by experience that when one is sleeping a rat feels as heavy as a sheep. But how can one possibly sleep? Out there in the dark there is the wild tattoo of a thousand rifles; and hark! that dull roar is the explosion of a mine. There! the purring of the rapid firers. Desperate things are doing. There will be lots of work for me before this night is over. What a cursed place! As I cannot sleep, I think of a story I heard to-day. It is of a Canadian Colonel, and in my mind I shape it like this: <h2> His Boys </h2> "I'm going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don't make any noise. There's Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away. I've fixed the note to your collar, you've got to get back to my Boys, You've got to get back to warn 'em before it's the break of day." The order came to go forward to a trench-line traced on the map; I knew the brass-hats had blundered, I knew and I told 'em so; I knew if I did as they ordered I would tumble into a trap, And I tried to explain, but the answer came like a pistol: "Go." Then I thought of the Boys I commanded—I always called them "my Boys"— The men of my own recruiting, the lads of my countryside; Tested in many a battle, I knew their sorrows and joys, And I loved them all like a father, with more than a father's pride. To march my Boys to a shambles as soon as the dawn of day; To see them helplessly slaughtered, if all that I guessed was true; My Boys that trusted me blindly, I thought and I tried to pray, And then I arose and I muttered: "It's either them or it's you." I rose and I donned my rain-coat; I buckled my helmet tight. I remember you watched me, Billy, as I took my cane in my hand; I vaulted over the sandbags into the pitchy night, Into the pitted valley that served us as No Man's Land. I strode out over the hollow of hate and havoc and death, From the heights the guns were angry, with a vengeful snarling of steel; And once in a moment of stillness I heard hard panting breath, And I turned . . . it was you, old rascal, following hard on my heel. I fancy I cursed you, Billy; but not so much as I ought! And so we went forward together, till we came to the valley rim, And then a star-shell sputtered . . . it was even worse than I thought, For the trench they told me to move in was packed with Boche to the brim. They saw me too, and they got me; they peppered me till I fell; And there I scribbled my message with my life-blood ebbing away; "Now, Billy, you fat old duffer, you've got to get back like hell; And get them to cancel that order before it's the dawn of day. "Billy, old boy, I love you, I kiss your shiny black nose; Now, home there. . . . Hurry, you devil, or I'll cut you to ribands. . . . See . . ." Poor brute! he's off! and I'm dying. . . . I go as a soldier goes. I'm happy. My Boys, God bless 'em! . . . It had to be them or me. Ah! I never was intended for a job like this. I realize it more and more every day, but I will stick it out till I break down. To be nervous, over-imaginative, terribly sensitive to suffering, is a poor equipment for the man who starts out to drive wounded on the battlefield. I am haunted by the thought that my car may break down when I have a load of wounded. Once indeed it did, and a man died while I waited for help. Now I never look at what is given me. It might unnerve me. I have been at it for over six months without a rest. When an attack has been going on I have worked day and night, until as I drove I wanted to fall asleep at the wheel. The winter has been trying; there is rain one day, frost the next. Mud up to the axles. One sleeps in lousy barns or dripping dugouts. Cold, hunger, dirt, I know them all singly and together. My only consolation is that the war must soon be over, and that I will have helped. When I have time and am not too tired, I comfort myself with scribbling. <h2> The Booby-Trap </h2> I'm crawlin' out in the mangolds to bury wot's left o' Joe— Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! 'ow it rains and rains). I'm sick o' seein' him lyin' like a 'eap o' offal, and so I'm crawlin' out in the beet-field to bury 'is last remains. 'E might 'a bin makin' munitions—'e 'adn't no need to go; An' I tells 'im strite, but 'e arnsers, "'Tain't no use chewin' the fat; I've got to be doin' me dooty wiv the rest o' the boys" . . . an' so Yon's 'im, yon blob on the beet-field wot I'm tryin' so 'ard to git at. There was five of us lads from the brickyard; 'Enry was gassed at Bapome, Sydney was drowned in a crater, 'Erbert was 'alved by a shell; Joe was the pick o' the posy, might 'a bin sifely at 'ome, Only son of 'is mother, 'er a widder as well. She used to sell bobbins and buttons—'ad a plice near the Waterloo Road; A little, old, bent-over lydy, wiv glasses an' silvery 'air; Must tell 'er I planted 'im nicely, cheer 'er up like. . . . (Well, I'm blowed, That bullet near catched me a biffer)—I'll see the old gel if I'm spared. She'll tike it to 'eart, pore ol' lydy, fer 'e was 'er 'ope and 'er joy; 'Is dad used to drink like a knot-'ole, she kept the 'ome goin', she did: She pinched and she scriped fer 'is scoolin', 'e was sich a fine 'andsome boy ('Alf Flanders seems packed on me panties)— 'e's 'andsome no longer, pore kid! This bit o' a board that I'm packin' and draggin' around in the mire, I was tickled to death when I found it. Says I, "'Ere's a nice little glow." I was chilled and wet through to the marrer, so I started to make me a fire; And then I says: "No; 'ere, Goblimy, it'll do for a cross for Joe." Well, 'ere 'e is. Gawd! 'Ow one chinges a-lyin' six weeks in the rain. Joe, me old pal, 'ow I'm sorry; so 'elp me, I wish I could pray. An' now I 'ad best get a-diggin' 'is grave (it seems more like a drain)— And I 'opes that the Boches won't git me till I gits 'im safe planted away. (As he touches the body there is a tremendous explosion. He falls back shattered.) A booby-trap! Ought to 'a known it! If that's not a bastardly trick! Well, one thing, I won't be long goin'. Gawd! I'm a 'ell of a sight. Wish I'd died fightin' and killin'; that's wot it is makes me sick. . . . Ah, Joe! we'll be pushin' up dysies . . . together, old Chummie . . . good-night! To-day I heard that MacBean had been killed in Belgium. I believe he turned out a wonderful soldier. Saxon Dane, too, has been missing for two months. We know what that means. It is odd how one gets callous to death, a mediaeval callousness. When we hear that the best of our friends have gone West, we have a moment of the keenest regret; but how soon again we find the heart to laugh! The saddest part of loss, I think, is that one so soon gets over it. Is it that we fail to realize it all? Is it that it seems a strange and hideous dream, from which we will awake and rub our eyes? Oh, how bitter I feel as the days go by! It is creeping more and more into my verse. Read this: <h2> Bonehead Bill </h2> I wonder 'oo and wot 'e was, That 'Un I got so slick. I couldn't see 'is face because The night was 'ideous thick. I just made out among the black A blinkin' wedge o' white; Then biff! I guess I got 'im crack— The man I killed last night. I wonder if account o' me Some wench will go unwed, And 'eaps o' lives will never be, Because 'e's stark and dead? Or if 'is missis damns the war, And by some candle light, Tow-headed kids are prayin' for The Fritz I copped last night. I wonder, 'struth, I wonder why I 'ad that 'orful dream? I saw up in the giddy sky The gates o' God agleam; I saw the gates o' 'eaven shine Wiv everlastin' light: And then . . . I knew that I'd got mine, As 'e got 'is last night. Aye, bang beyond the broodin' mists Where spawn the mother stars, I 'ammered wiv me bloody fists Upon them golden bars; I 'ammered till a devil's doubt Fair froze me wiv affright: To fink wot God would say about The bloke I corpsed last night. I 'ushed; I wilted wiv despair, When, like a rosy flame, I sees a angel standin' there 'Oo calls me by me name. 'E 'ad such soft, such shiny eyes; 'E 'eld 'is 'and and smiled; And through the gates o' Paradise 'E led me like a child. 'E led me by them golden palms Wot 'ems that jeweled street; And seraphs was a-singin' psalms, You've no ideer 'ow sweet; Wiv cheroobs crowdin' closer round Than peas is in a pod, 'E led me to a shiny mound Where beams the throne o' God. And then I 'ears God's werry voice: "Bill 'agan, 'ave no fear. Stand up and glory and rejoice For 'im 'oo led you 'ere." And in a nip I seemed to see: Aye, like a flash o' light, My angel pal I knew to be The chap I plugged last night. Now, I don't claim to understand— They calls me Bonehead Bill; They shoves a rifle in me 'and, And show me 'ow to kill. Me job's to risk me life and limb, But . . . be it wrong or right, This cross I'm makin', it's for 'im, The cove I croaked last night. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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