Voices of Silence (54 page)

The Last Lay of the Sopwith Camel Pilot
,
Airman’s Song Book
. Spads comes from SPAD (Société pour Aviation et ses Dérivés), which was a single-seater biplane.

The Dying Aviator
,
Tommy’s Tunes
. To be sung to the tune of ‘The Dying Lancer’.

Captain Albert Ball, V.C., D.S.O.
,
The Fledgling
, vol. 1, no. 3, August 1917. The poem is signed ‘G.R.S.’. Captain Albert Ball (1896–1917) was one of the legendary figures of the war whose courage and daring as a solo fighter pilot helped to lift spirits at a time when RFC casualties were appallingly high. Awarded the pilot’s brevet in January 1916, he was in France the following month. He was credited with 44 victories, and was awarded the MC, the DSO and two bars and, posthumously, the VC. Like his German counterpart, the Red Baron, he was as highly regarded by the enemy as by his own side.

CHAPTER TEN: VERDUN, THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME BEGINS

Verdun
,
Punch
, vol. 151, 8 November 1916.

Before Action
,
Grapes of Thorns
.

Life and Death
,
My Window Sill
. The poem is subscribed ‘Ypres, 1917’.

Gommecourt
,
Poems
. The poem is subscribed ‘B.E.F. 1916’.

German Boy
,
Sorrow of War
.

The Bullet
,
Ballads of Battle
.

Left Alone
,
More Songs by the Fighting Men
.

My Pal and I
,
Fragments
, vol. 2, Christmas number, 1918.

R.I.P.
,
Roads and Ditches
. Le Sars, on the road between Albert and Bapaume, was finally captured on 7 October.

A Soldiers’ Cemetery
,
The Undying Splendour
. [
Went the day well?
], unidentified newspaper cutting in a scrapbook in the RAF Museum (AC97/127/50).

To my Chum
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 4, no. 2, 20 March 1916.

Travail
,
The Night Sister
.

From the Somme
,
More Songs by the Fighting Men
.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: CASUALTIES OF THE SOMME

Walking Wounded
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 25, January 1919. The poem is signed ‘Woodbine Willie’.

The Messages
,
Battle
.

Unloading Ambulance Train
,
The Menin Road
. The poem is dated September 1918.

The Casualty Clearing Station
,
Rail-Head
. Reprinted in
Soldier Poets: Songs of the Fighting Men
, with a third verse.

Quantum Mutatus
,
On Leave
. Translates as ‘How greatly changed’.

The Casualty List
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 3, no. 13, December 1915. The poem is signed ‘M.F.’.

[
There are tear-dimmed eyes in the town today
],
Burnley Express
, 29 July 1916. This stanza appeared in a short article about Lance-Corporal W. Howarth and Lance-Corporal Marshall of the Burnley ‘Pals’, who were wounded on 1 July 1916. It is part of a longer poem entitled ‘The Boys who Fought and Fell’ that was published in the
Accrington Observer and Times
on 22 July 1916.

Broken Bodies
,
Sorrow of War
.

The Widow
,
Punch
, vol. 151, 29 November 1916.

A Little War Tragedy
,
Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital
, vol. 2, no. 8, May 1917. The poem is signed ‘H.M.N.’.

To A.M.
,
The Quest of Truth
.

Lost in France
,
The Nation
, vol. 22, no. 2, 13 October 1917. The poem is signed ‘E.R.’.

Telling the Bees
,
A Treasury of War Poetry
. Originally published in
Saturday Westminster Gazette
.

To a Dog
,
ibid
. Originally published in
Vanity Fair
.

The Dead Hero
,
To the Living Dead and Other Poems
. The poem is dated February 1916.

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE WOUNDED IN ENGLAND

Ex Umbra
,
Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital
, vol. 4, no. 6, March 1919.

Evening – Kent
,
Sorrow of War
.

Charing Cross
,
The Lady
, vol. 64, no. 1656, 9 November 1916. The poem is signed ‘E.E.W.’.

A Sister in a Military Hospital
,
The Spires of Oxford
.

To a V.A.D. from a V.A.D.
,
Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital
, vol. 1, no. 8, May 1916. The poem is dated 30 August 1916. Sapolio is a type of soap.

To a V.A.D.
,
ibid
., vol. 2, no. 9, June 1917. The poem is signed ‘C.D.’.

A Bit of Bunting
,
Told in the Huts
.

Wounded
,
War Daubs
.

The Band
,
A Bunch of Cotswold Grasses
. The poem is no. 5 in a group of poems entitled ‘In a Soldiers’ Hospital’.

To Melt a Stone
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 3, 5 March 1917. Reprinted in
The Quirk
, December 1917. Cox was the London bank with which many officers had accounts.

In Hospital
,
Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital
, vol. 1, no. 2, November 1915. ‘Afton’s green braes’ comes from Robert Burns’s poem ‘Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes’.

The Cripple
,
Songs of a Campaign
.

The Road that Brought me to Roehampton
,
Roehampton Rhymes
.

My Motor-Bus Conductress
,
ibid
.

In a Tramcar
,
The Nation
, vol. 23, no. 8, 25 May 1918, War Cartoons I.

After Visiting an Asylum
,
Comrades
.

Gold Braid
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 21 March 1917.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: AUTUMN AND WINTER 1916–1917

Before Ginchy
,
On Leave
. Originally published in
Fortnightly Review
. The battle for Ginchy took place between 3 and 9 September 1916.

September 25th, 1916
,
Front Line Lyrics
.

The German Dug-out
,
Dies Heroica
.

Mud
,
Evening News
, 4 December 1916.

A Song of Winter Weather
,
The Rhymes of a Red-Cross Man
.

An Appeal
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 3, 20 January 1917. The poem is signed ‘One & All’.

They Didn’t Believe Me!
,
ibid
., vol. 1, no. 5, 10 April 1917.

[
The corp’rl and the privit they
],
Wipers Times
, vol. 3, no. 2, 6 March 1916.

Cigarettes
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 14, September 1916.

Minor Worries
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 2, no. 1, 1 May 1916.

To all ‘Doubting Thomases’
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 5, 10 April 1917.

The Armoured(illo) Train
,
The War Men-agerie
.

The Sentrypede
,
ibid
.

[
The world wasn’t made in a day
],
Wipers Times
, vol. 1, no. 1, 12 February 1916.

[
Little stacks of sandbags
],
ibid
., vol. 1, no. 2, 26 February 1916.

Why Not?
,
BEF Times
, 25 December 1917. The Gaby Glide was a dance made famous by the French actress Gaby Deslys (1881–1920). The Turkey Trot and Boston Hop were popular dances which originated in the US.

The Duck Board
,
Flanders to Fowey
.

Joseph Arthur Brown
,
The Poets in Picardy
.

The Missing Leader
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 28 February 1917. RA exhibition is the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts; ‘
sæva indignatio
’ translates as ‘fiercely angry’; Horatio is Horatio Bull, editor of the jingoistic magazine,
John Bull
; a ‘Juvenal
renatus
’ is a Juvenal reborn; Sir Hedworth Meux (1856–1929) was Admiral of the Fleet between March 1915 and April 1917. He was one of the pall bearers at the burial of the Unknown Warrior. Blenheim Boanerges refers to Blenheim Palace, home of the Dukes of Marlborough, Churchill’s family, and to the biblical sons of thunder who called down fire from heaven; Admiral Sir John Fisher (1841–1920) was brought out of retirement by Churchill at the beginning of the war to become First Sea Lord. He resigned in May 1915 over Churchill’s use of naval vessels in the Gallipoli campaign.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAVE

A Song
,
Craigleith Hospital Chronicle
, vol. 3, no. 18, July 1916.

The Wire that Failed
,
Fragments
, vol. 1, no. 5, June 1917.

Four Words
,
Aussie
, no. 8, October 1918. [
If you’re waking call me early, call me early, sergeant dear
],
‘New Church’ Times
, vol. 1, no. 2, 1 May 1916.

Of Harold, and his Fatal Taste for Souvenirs
,
A Train Errant
. The poem is signed ‘J.W.H.’. Printed instructions issued to officers and men going on leave spelt out those articles which it was forbidden for men to take back to England; these included ‘Bombs, Shells, Shell cases and fuses. Trophies captured from the enemy (with the exception of German helmets, caps, badges, numerals and buttons.)’ Gotha is the generic name for large German aeroplanes that dropped bombs on London, from ‘Gotha Wagen Fabrik’, where they were made.

Virtue
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 December 1916. ABC is the Aerated Bread Company, a chain of popular tea shops.

Mufti Once More
,
Punch
, vol. 154, 16 January 1918. The poem is signed ‘Evoe’.

A Vision of Blighty
,
ibid.
, vol. 152, 11 April 1917.

Ragtime
,
A Miscellany of Poetry – 1919
.

At Afternoon Tea
,
Gloucestershire Friends
.

On Leave (1)
,
Depot Review
, no. 5.

On Leave (2)
,
Magpies in Picardy
.

A Day in Spring
,
Love Songs of a Soldier
. The poem is subscribed ‘Nottingham, 1917’.

Oxford Revisited
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 21 February 1917. The poem is signed ‘Algol’ and dated 21 February 1917. ‘
Jeunesse dorée
’ is gilded youth; DD is Doctor of Divinity; the VTC is the Volunteer Training Corps, made up of men unfit for the army who were trained in home defence.

On Christmas Leave
,
ibid
., vol. 151, 27 December 1916.

English Leave
,
The Splendid Days
. Written during the last leave of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s son, Bevil, to whom she was engaged. He survived the war, but died of influenza while serving in the Army of Occupation in Germany in February 1919.
The Train for the Front
,
The Lady
, vol. 64, no. 1655, 2 November 1916. The poem is signed ‘L.M.O.’.

On Returning to the Front after Leave
,
Poems
.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SPRING AND EARLY SUMMER 1917

[
There was a little Hun, and at war he tried his hand
],
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 2, 20 January 1917.

More Peace-Talk in Berlin
,
Punch
, 24 May 1916.

The Kaiser’s Cry for Peace
,
War Cartoon Sonnets
. The poem is dated July 1917.

War Aims
,
Satire and Sentiment
. Lothringen is the German name for Lorraine, the province in the east of France that became German after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1 but was reclaimed by the French after the war.

The Woman who Shrieked against Peace
,
Sorrow of War
.

Profit and Loss
,
BEF Times
, 22 January 1918.

Arras
,
More Songs by the Fighting Men
. The poem was republished in
Roads and Ditches
with substantial changes.

Zero!
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 23 May 1917. Reprinted in
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 1, September 1917, and in
The Bomber Gipsy
with some changes. Gavrelle was captured on 23 April 1917 during the Battle of Arras.

Open Warfare
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 20 June 1917. Reprinted in
The Bomber Gipsy
with some changes.

Beaucourt Revisited
,
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 1, September 1917. Reprinted in
The Bomber Gipsy
with substantial changes. The 63rd (Royal Navy) Division captured Beaucourt, with devastating casualties, on 13 November 1916. Two of Herbert’s close friends, James Cook and William Ker, were killed, as was Vere Harmsworth, son of Lord Rothermere.

Meditation in June
, 1917,
Collected Poems
.

In the Third Year of the War
,
The Nation
, vol. 20, no. 23, 10 March 1917. Reprinted in
A Muse at Sea
with some changes. These are mostly to punctuation: he has used lower case in the opening word of each line within sentences.

Proverbs of the Pessimists
,
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 3, January 1918.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: RED TAPE AND RIVALRY

Urgent or Ordinary
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 3, no. 2, 6 March 1916. Omar’s Saki refers to the line in
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
, an immensely popular work of the time: ‘And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass.’ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) was a German Expressionist painter and sculptor.

Requisitional
,
Punch
, vol. 149, 18 August 1915.

An Ode to Q.
,
Wipers Times
, vol. 1, no. 2, 26 February 1916.

Our Fighting Men
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 10, March 1916. ‘A(c) A(c) A(c)’ indicates the end of a signaller’s message.