THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY

By E.W. Hornung

E. P. Dutton & Company

1917

THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY

I T is the story of

Ensign Joy

And the obsolete

rank withal

That I love for each gentle English

boy

Who jumped to his country's

call.

By their fire and fun, and the

deeds they've done,

I would gazette them Second to

none

Who faces a gun in Gaul!)

IT is also the story of Ermyntrude

A less appropriate name

For the dearest prig and the

prettiest prude!

But under it, all the same,

The usual consanguineous squad

Had made her an honest child

of God—

And left her to play the game.

IT was just when the grind of

the Special Reserves,

Employed upon Coast Defence,

Was getting on every Ensign's

nerves—

Sick-keen to be drafted

hence—

That they met and played tennis

and danced and sang,

The lad with the laugh and the

schoolboy slang,

The girl with the eyes intense.

YET it wasn't for him that she

languished and sighed,

But for all of our dear deemed

youth;

And it wasn't for her, but her

sex, that he cried,

If he could but have probed

the truth !

Did she? She would none of his

hot young heart;

As khaki escort he's tall and

smart,

As lover a shade uncouth.

HE went with his draft. She

returned to her craft.

He wrote in his merry vein:

She read him aloud, and the

Studio laughed!

Ermyntrude bore the strain.

He was full of gay bloodshed and

Old Man Fritz:

His flippancy sent her friends

into fits.

Ermyntrude frowned with

pain.

HIS tales of the Sergeant who

swore so hard

Left Ermyntrude cold and

prim;

The tactless truth of the picture

jarred,

And some of his jokes were

grim.

Yet, let him but skate upon

tender ice,

And he had to write to her twice

or thrice

Before she would answer him.

YET once she sent him a

fairy's box,

And her pocket felt the brunt

Of tinned contraptions and

books and socks—

Which he hailed as "a sporting

stunt!"

She slaved at his muffler none

the less,

And still took pleasure in mur-

muring, "Yes!

For a friend of mine at the

Front.")

ONE fine morning his name

appears—

Looking so pretty in print!

"Wounded!" she warbles in

tragedy tears—

And pictures the reddening

lint,

The drawn damp face and the

draggled hair . . .

But she found him blooming in

Grosvenor Square,

With a punctured shin in a

splint.

IT wasn't a haunt of Ermyn-

trude's,

That grandiose urban pile;

Like starlight in arctic altitudes

Was the stately Sister's smile.

It was just the reverse with

Ensign Joy—

In his golden greeting no least

alloy—

In his shining eyes no guile!

HE showed her the bullet that

did the trick—

He showed her the trick,

x-ray'd;

He showed her a table timed to

a tick,

And a map that an airman

made.

He spoke of a shell that caused grievous loss—

But he never mentioned a certain

cross

For his part in the escapade!

SHE saw it herself in a list next

day,

And it brought her back to his

bed,

With a number of beautiful

things to say,

Which were mostly over his

head.

Turned pink as his own pyjamas'

stripe,

To her mind he ceased to em-

body a type—

Sank into her heart instead.

I WONDER that all of you

didn't retire!"

"My blighters were not that

kind."

"But it says you 'advanced un-

der murderous fire,

Machine-gun and shell com-

bined—'"

"Oh, that's the regular War

Office wheeze!"

"'Advanced'—with that leg!—

'on his hands and knees'!"

"I couldn't leave it behind."

HE was soon trick-driving an

invalid chair,

and dancing about on a crutch;

The haute noblesse of Grosvenor

Square

Felt bound to oblige as such;

They sent him for many a motor-

whirl—

With the wistful, willowy wisp of

a girl

Who never again lost touch.

THEIR people were most of

them dead and gone.

They had only themselves to

His pay was enough to marry

upon,

As every Ensign sees.

They would muddle along (as

in fact they did)

With vast supplies of the tertium

quid

You bracket with bread-and-

cheese.

please.

THEY gave him some leave

after Grosvenor 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 good

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 be-

neath!

FOR all he had suffered and

seen before

Seemed nought to a husband's

care;

And the Chinese puzzle of mod-

ern 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—

"A man in a world of men"!

Each cheery dog is a henchman

boon—

Especially Sergeant Wren!

Ermyntrude couldn't endure his

name—

Considered bad language no lien

on fame,

Yet it's good to—hear it

again!

BETTER to feel the Ser-

geant'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 beard-

less 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 pic-

nic now,

And better than any play!

HIS booby-hutch is "as safe

as the Throne,"

And he fares "like the C.-in-

Chief,"

But has purchased "a top-hole

gramophone

By way of comic relief."

(And he sighs as he hears the

men applaud,

While the Woodbine spices are

wafted abroad

With the odour 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: