Voices of Silence (31 page)

In days to come, oh V.A.D., in days
après la guerre
,

They prate of sex and class and votes, of freedom and of land.

Don’t heed them, dear, I beg of you; they do not understand

That once I’ve doffed my uniform there’s but one thing I crave,

To come once more beneath your sway and be your willing slave.

They have settled the ward for the evening,

And straightened every bed;

We have drunk our bowls of cocoa,

And they’ve covered the lights with red.

We are lying now till the morning –

’Tis a terrible time to wait,

When the day seems twenty-four hours

And the night seems forty-eight.

For the man to the right is restless,

I can hear him mutter and moan,

And the boy in the bed beside me

Is breaking his heart for home.

I doze a little at moments,

Till I’m back with the heat and flies

In the sniper’s line of fire,

With the sunlight in my eyes.

It’s curious, lying thinking

When the clock strikes once and again,

How fate has formed us together

In a regiment of pain;

How from far-off town and village,

From the peace of the country sward,

We have answered the call of England –

To meet again in a ward!

You have heard of the old pied piper

Who came to the village street,

And played a tune to the children,

A melody strange and sweet;

And with eyes aglow with laughter,

And curls that shone in the sun,

They tramped to the sound of the music

And followed him every one.

We all grow bitter at seasons –

God knows we are battered and worn –

And we feel in our darkest moments

That nothing more can be borne;

But say what you will about it,

There is something in each man’s breast

That would urge him to rise and follow,

Though he hungered for peace and rest.

It is stronger than home and comfort,

It is stronger than love and life,

Than the speechless grief of a mother

Or the clinging arms of a wife;

For whenever the old flag shall summon,

In the midst of his direst pain,

He would hear it out of the shadows,

And it would never call in vain.

Do we wonder why we have done it

When the pain is hardest to bear,

And the helpless years to come

Press like a load of care?

Do we wonder why we have done it,

When just at the break of day

We fancy we hear the sobbing

Of the loved ones far away?

Over the mantel yonder,

Between the glass and the wall,

They have wedged a piece of bunting –

You can scarcely see it at all;

But my eyes go searching for it

Before they cover the light,

For it’s brought a message with it,

And I read it every night;

For whether he’s tired and weary,

Or whether he’s hurt and sad,

Or whether he’s old and helpless,

Or whether he is but a lad, –

As long as England is England,

And as long as a man has his will,

He would rise from a bed of sickness

To hobble after it still.

They say that the grandest picture

In England, when war is done,

And we’ve dragged our own from the Germans,

And fought and bled and won,

Will not be the row of medals

That blaze on a general’s breast,

Or the little letters of glory

That follow a hero’s name;

But the sight that will rouse the nation

And stir our pulses yet,

The sight that the women of England

Will count as a lasting debt,

Is the empty sleeve of a soldier

Who has braved the surgeon’s knife,

And the man who goes on crutches

For the rest of his mortal life.

I am not brave

As others seem to be;

But, like a knave,

I cringe in misery:

I cannot face

With smiles my wound’s keen bite;

And, oh, a furnace

Is my bed at night!

O God, my God,

Give me the strength to see

Thy hand on the rod

That hotly scourges me!

R. Watson Kerr

Down the street comes the marching music,

New-called soldiers go swinging by.

Hark! the roll of the drums’ deep triumph;

Thrill of the bugles proud and high;

Singing of war and pomp of battle,

Glory and honour that shall not die.

Here in the ward are sick men lying,

Ne’er to follow the drums again:

Young men broken in life’s fair morning,

Weary-hearted and spent with pain,

Turn to listen as through the window

Swells the lilt of that mocking strain.

Silence, silence, oh, lying music!

War is waste and a searing fire;

Youth and gladness and all things lovely

Trodden out in the bloody mire.

Still the music comes calling, calling,

‘Glory! Glory! beyond desire!’

Eva Dobell

Kindly manager of Cox,

I am sadly on the rocks,

For a time my warring ceases,

My patella is in pieces;

Though in Hospital I lie,

I am not about to die;

Therefore let me overdraw

Just a very little more.

If you stick to your red tape

I must go without my grape,

And my life must sadly fret

With a cheaper cigarette.

So pray be not hard upon

A poor dejected subaltern,

This is all I have to say,

‘
IMPECUNIOUS
’
R.F.A
.

Alleged Answer from Cox’s

Sir, the kindly heart of Cox

Cannot leave you on the rocks,

And he could not sleep in bed

Thinking you were underfed;

So if you will let us know

Just how far you want to go,

Your request will not be vain,

Written from your bed of pain.

We will make but one request –

Keep this locked within your breast,

For if others know, they’ll say,

‘Good old Cox is sure to pay,

Only take him the right way.’

When the war is done we’ll recall the fun –

The fun that conquered the pain –

For we’ll owe a debt (and we’ll not forget)

To the jokes that kept us sane:

How the wounded could laugh and bandy their chaff

And kick up the deuce of a row!

It may be, in peace, when the sufferings cease,

We’ll be sadder, aye sadder, than now.

A 3rd L[ondon] G[eneral] H[ospital] Orderly

He totters round and dangles those odd shapes

That were his legs. His eyes are never dim.

He brags about his fame between the tapes,

And laughs the loudest when they laugh at him.

Amid the fights of snow he takes a hand;

Accepts his small defeats, and with a smile

He rises from the ground, and makes his stand

With clumsiness, but battles hard the while.

So quick to see the pain in fellow men,

He chides them; yea, and laughs them into youth.

And yet, when death was near to one, ’twas then

About his kindly heart we learnt the truth.

Since nowadays of cheer there is a dearth,

’Twas smiles or tears, and so he chose the mirth.

Leon Gellert

Of course, to be without a leg, as everybody knows,

Has this advantage – nobody can tread upon your toes;

And when a Theatre, or may be, a Cinema you’re in,

There’s nobody who’s clumsy who can kick you on the shin.

Again, you can’t get chilblains, or trench feet when you’re out,

And so you see how safely you can always get about.

They are long long trails I’ve tramped on;

There are lonely spots I’ve camped on;

There are doorsteps I have stamped on;

There are pianos I have vamped on;

But the Trail I’ve struck,

With the Best of Luck,

Is the Road that brought me to Roehampton.

Now when your leg is separate, there’s one thing to be said,

You can be half-dressed already when you’re getting out of bed;

But if you’re on a muddy road, it may be just your luck

To twist your foot right round, if in the mud you get it stuck.

And then you’ll keep on walking round and round upon your track,

For you won’t really know if you are going on or back.

They are long long trails I’ve tramped on, etc.

When I obtain my wooden leg, I’ll hop and skip and jump;

I never may be wealthy, being always on the stump;

Yet I can always stump up, and at any time I beg

To say that like some others I can always ‘Swing the leg’.

So put your best foot forward – an easy thing to do –

Though it might be hard to say which is the better of the two!

They are long long trails I’ve tramped on, etc.

Sivori Levey

If a one-legg’d man jumps on a bus,

He needs expert assistance;

He doesn’t want a lot of fuss

To go a little distance.

And starting from Roehampton Lane

A Number Eighty-Five

Has got a Lady Bus Conductor

Very much alive.

A little curl says ‘Cheerio!’

From underneath her hat,

She wears a uniform, and she

Looks very smart in that.

My Lady Bus Conductress,

With sweet smile and ‘Good Luck’ tress,

‘The Green Man’ at the turning

Murmurs ‘Mustard’ or ‘Chutney!’

But with her hand to hold me,

And her arm to enfold me,

It’s safely on and safely off –

At Roehampton or at Putney.

At Roehampton Lane or Putney Heath,

The Hill, or at the Station,

You see her hat and underneath

Her smile of animation.

And when you come to Putney Bridge

You’re in the best of care,

Because that Lady Bus Conductor

Always is ‘all there!’

Her smiling eyes say ‘Cheerio!’

To all who sit or stand,

And getting on or getting off,

She gives a helping hand.

My Lady Bus Conductress, etc.

And when you get up from your seat,

She takes hold of your crutches;

And helps you down – it’s quite a feat! –

Majestic as a Duchess.

Roehampton House or Dover House,

For officer or man,

That Lady Motor Bus Conductor

Does the best she can.

Her agile hands say ‘Cheerio!’

There’s ‘Good Luck’ in her eye;

There’s no need for anxiety

When she is standing by.

My Lady Bus Conductress, etc.

Sivori Levey

Rain, dark, and mud; the gaslights dim and shrunk;

Dull full-fed faces ranged in double row,

Oozing respectability; and, drunk,

Within his corner, mounting in a glow

Of mirth that is not mirth, he sat and sang

Of Afton’s green braes. His friend, mean, shoddy-clad,

And hunched and writhen, in a voice that rang

Strange on those stolid masks, explained: ‘This lad

(I dinna ken him; I’m just seeing him through)

Got blinded at the war. He’s no himsel’’.

Then suddenly I saw his eyes were two

Red smears. The conductress signed and rang the bell.

They lumped him out into the triple night

Of dark and mental mirk and blasted sight.

E. Albert

I saw them sitting on a grassy bank –

Under the shade of mighty trees they were;

Yet those they saw not, with their dreadful stare,

Of naught expressive save the spirit’s blank.

They sat companioned, yet they sat alone:

Nature and all the glory of the hour

They heeded not; and memory could not dower

Their minds with images; no future known,

They could not hope; of others nought they knew,

Therefore they conversed not; and while they slept

They were as conscious of the hours that crept

As when awake – and in my mind there grew

Horror before their fate who thus were caught

And prisoned in a hell beyond our thought.

Alexander Robertson

Same old crossing, same old boat,

Same old dust round Rouen way,

Some old nasty one-franc note,

Same old ‘Mercy, sivvoo play’;

Same old scramble up the line,

Same old ’orse-box, same old stror,

Same old weather, wet or fine,

Same old blooming War.

Ho Lor, it isn’t a dream,

It’s just as it used to be, every bit;

Same old whistle and same old bang,

And me to stay ’ere till I’m ’it.

’Twas up by Loos I got my first;

I just dropped gently, crawled a yard

And rested sickish, with a thirst –

The ’eat, I thought, and smoking ’ard . . .

Then someone offers me a drink,

What poets call ‘the cooling draft’,

And seeing ’im I done a think:

‘
Blighty
’, I thinks – and laughed.