Any Soldier To His Son

(ca1918)

What did I do, Sonny,
        in the Great World War?
Well, I learned to peel potatoes
        and to scrub the barrack floor.
I learned to push a barrow
        and I learned to swing a pick,
I learned to turn my toes out,
        and to make my eyeballs click.
I learned the road to Folkestone,
        and I watched the English shore,
Go down behind the skyline,
        as I thought, for evermore.
And the Blighty boats went by us
        and the harbour hove in sight,
And they landed us and sorted us
        and marched us "by the right".
"Quick march!" across the cobbles,
        by the kids who ran along
Singing "Appoo?", "Spearmant?", "Shokolah?"
        through dingy old Boulogne;
By the widows and the nurses
        and the niggers and Chinese,
And the gangs of smiling Fritzes,
        as saucy as you please.

I learned to ride as soldiers ride
        from Etaps to the Line,
For days and nights in cattle trucks,
        packed in like droves of swine.
I learned to curl and kip it
        on a foot of muddy floor,
And to envy cows and horses
        that have beds of beaucoup straw.
I learned to wash in shell holes
        and to shave myself in tea,
While the fragments of a mirror
        did a balance on my knee.
I learned to dodge the whizz-bangs
        and the flying lumps of lead,
And to keep a foot of earth between
        the sniper and my head.
I learned to keep my haversack
        well filled with buckshee food,
To take the Army issue
        and to pinch what else I could.
I learned to cook Maconochie
        with candle-ends and string,
With "four-by-two" and sardine-oil
        and any God-dam thing.
I learned to use my bayonet
        according as you please
For a breadknife or a chopper
        or a prong for toasting cheese.
I learned "a first field dressing"
        to serve my mate and me
As a dish-rag and a face-rag
        and a strainer for our tea.
I learned to gather souvenirs
        that home I hoped to send,
And hump them round for months and months
        and dump them in the end.
I learned to hunt for vermin
        in the lining of my shirt,
To crack them with my finger-nail
        and feel the beggars spirt;
I learned to catch and crack them
        by the dozen and the score
And to hunt my shirt tomorrow
        and to find as many more.

I learned to sleep by snatches
        on the firestep of a trench,
And to eat my breakfast mixed with mud
        and Fritz's heavy stench.
I learned to pray for Blighty ones
        and lie and squirm with fear,
When Jerry started strafing
        and the Blighty ones were near.
I learned to write home cheerful
        with my heart a lump of lead
With the thought of you and mother,
        when she heard that I was dead.
And the only thing like pleasure
        over there I ever knew,
Was to hear my pal come shouting,
        "There's a parcel, mate, for you."

So much for what I did do —
        now for what I have not done:
Well, I never kissed a French girl
        and I never killed a Hun,
I never missed an issue
        of tobacco, pay, or rum,
I never made a friend
        and yet I never lacked a chum.
I never borrowed money,
        and I never lent — but once
(I can learn some sorts of lessons
        though I may be borne a dunce).
I never used to grumble
        after breakfast in the Line
That the eggs were cooked too lightly
        or the bacon cut too fine.
I never told a sergeant
        just exactly what I thought,
I never did a pack-drill,
        for I never quite got caught.
I never punched a Red-Cap's nose
        (be prudent like your Dad),
But I'd like as many Sovereigns
        as the times I've wished I had.
I never stopped a whizz-bang,
        though I've stopped a lot of mud,
But the one that Fritz sent over
        with my name on was a dud.
I never played the hero
        or walked about on top,
I kept inside my funk hole
        when the shells began to drop.
Well, Tommy Jones's father
        must be made of different stuff:
I never asked for trouble —
        the issue was enough.

So I learned to live and lump it
        in the lovely land of war,
Where the face of nature
        seems a monstrous septic sore,
Where the bowels of earth hang open,
        like the guts of something slain,
And the rot and wreck of everything
        are churned and churned again;
Where all is done in darkness
        and where all is still in day,
Where living men are buried
        and the dead unburied lay;
Where men inhabit holes like rats,
        and only rats live there;
Where cottage stood and castle
        once in days before la guerre;
Where endless files of soldiers
        thread the everlasting way,
By endless miles of duckboards,
        through endless walls of clay;
Where life is one hard labour,
        and a soldier gets his rest
When they leave him in the daisies
        with a puncture in his chest;
Where still the lark in summer
        pours her warble from the skies,
And underneath, unheeding,
        lie the blank upstaring eyes.

And I read the Blighty papers,
        where the warriors of the pen
Tell of "Christmas in the Trenches"
        and "The Spirit of Our Men";
And I saved the choicest morsels
        and I read them to my chum,
And he muttered, as he cracked a louse
        and wiped it off his thumb:
"May a thousand chats from Belgium
        crawl under their fingers as they write;
May they dream they're not exempted
        till they faint with mortal fright;
May the fattest rats in Dickebusch
        race over them in bed;
May the lies they've written
        choke them like a gas cloud
        till they're dead;
May the horror and the torture
        and the things they never tell
(For they only write to order)
        be reserved for them in Hell!"

You'd like to be a soldier
        and go to France some day?
By all the dead in Delville Wood,
        by all the nights I lay
Between our lines and Fritz's
        before they brought me in;
By this old wood-and-leather stump,
        that once was flesh and skin;
By all the lads who crossed with me
        but never crossed again,
By all the prayers
        their mothers and their sweethearts
        prayed in vain,
Before the things that were that day
        should ever more befall
May God in common pity
        destroy us one and all!