THE YOUNG GUARD – World War I Poems & Author's Memoirs from The Great War. E. W. Hornung
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and gone,
'They had only themselves to please.
His pay was enough to marry upon,
As every Ensign sees.
They would muddle along as others did,
On vast supplies of the tertium quid One brackets with bread and cheese.
They gave him some leave after Belgrave Square—
And bang went a month on banns;
For Ermyntrude had a natural flair For the least unusual plans. Her heaviest uncle came down well, And entertained, at a fair hotel, The dregs of the coupled clans.
A certain number of cheques accrued
To keep the wolf from the door:
The economical Ermyntrude
Had charge of the dwindling store,
When a Board reported her bridegroom fit
As—some expression she didn't permit . . .
And he left for the Front once more.
His crowd had been climbing the jaws of hell:
He found them in death's dog-teeth,
With little to show but a deal to tell
In their fissure of smoking heath.
There were changes—of course—but the change in him
Was the ribbon that showed on his tunic trim
And the tumult hidden beneath!
For all he had suffered and seen before
Seemed nought to a husband's care;
And the Chinese puzzle of modern war
For subtlety couldn't compare
With the delicate springs of the complex life
To be led with a highly sensitised wife
In a slightly rarefied air!
Yet it's good to be back with the old platoon—
And some of the same old men;
Each cheery dog is a henchman boon—
Especially Sergeant Wren!
Ermyntrude couldn't endure his name—
Considered bad language no claim to fame,
Yet it's good to—hear it again!
(Better to feel the Sergeant's grip,
Though your fingers ache to the bone!
Better to take the Sergeant's tip
Than to make up your mind alone.
They can do things together, can Wren and Joy—
The bristly bear and the beardless boy—
That neither could do on his own.)
But there's never a word about Old Man Wren
In the screeds he scribbles to-day—
Though he praises his N.C.O.'s and men
In rather a pointed way.
And he rubs it in (with a knitted brow)
That the war's as good as a picnic now,
And better than any play!
His booby-hutch is " as safe as the Throne,"
And he fares " like the C.-in-Chief."
He has " treated his chaps to a gramophone
By way of comic relief."
(And he sighs as he hears the chaps applaud,
While the Woodbine spices are wafted abroad
With a savour of bully-beef.)
He may touch on the latest type of bomb,
But Ermyntrude needn't blench,
For he never says where you hurl it from,
And it might be from your trench.
He never might lead a stealthy band,
Or toe the horrors of No Man's Land,
Or swim at the sickly stench. . . .
Her letters came up by ration-cart As the men stood-to before dawn: He followed the chart of her soaring heart With face transfigured yet drawn: It filled him with pride, touched with chivalrous shame But—it spoilt the war, as a first-class game, For this particular pawn.
(The Sergeant sees it, and damns the cause
In a duly sulphurous flow;
But turns and trounces, without a pause,
A junior N.C.O.
For the crime of agreeing that Ensign Joy
Isn't altogether the officer boy
That he was four months ago!)
At length he's dumfounded (the month being May)
By a sample of Ermyntrude's fun:
"You will kindly get leave over Christmas Day, Or make haste and finish the Hun!" But Christmas means presents, she bids him beware: "So what do you say to a son and heir? I'm thinking of giving you one!!! "
What, indeed, does the Ensign say?
What does he sit and write?
What do his heart-strings drone all day,
What do they throb all night?
What does he add to his piteous prayers:
"Not for my own sake, Lord, but— theirs, See me safe through. . . ."
"They talk" — and he writhes—" of our spirit out here,
Our valour and all the rest!
There's my poor, lonely, delicate dear,
As brave as the very best!
We stand or fall in a cheery crowd, And yet how often we grouse aloud! She faces that with a jest! "
He has had no sleep for a day and a night;
He has written her half a ream;
He has lain him down to wait for the light,
And at last come sleep—and a dream.
He's hopping on sticks up the studio stair:
A telegraph-boy is waiting there,
And—that is his darling's scream!
He picks her up in a tender storm—
But how does it come to pass
That he cannot see his reflected form
With hers in the studio glass?
"What's gone wrong with that mirror? " he cries.
But only the Sergeant's voice replies:
"Wake up, Sir! The Gas—the Gas! "
Is it a part of the dream of dread?
What are the men about?
Each one sticking a haunted head
Into a spectral clout!
Funny, the dearth of gibe and joke,
When each one looks like a pig in a poke,
Not omitting the snout!
"Here's your mask, Sir! No time to lose!"
Ugh, what a gallows shape!
Partly white cap, and partly noose!
Somebody ties the tape,
Goggles of sorts, it seems, inset:
Cock them over the parapet,
Study the battlescape.
Ensign Joy's in the second line —