Trench Ballads and Other Verses

Erwin Clarkson Garrett

Trench Ballads and Other Verses

Portrait of Erwin Clarkson Garrett

Trench Ballads
and Other Verses

By
Erwin Clarkson Garrett
Author of “Army Ballads and Other Verses”

PHILADELPHIA
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
1919

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER,
the late Captain George L. Garrett, of the Union
Army, during the Civil War
AND TO
MY MOTHER,
whose lifelong devotion, unselfishness, tenderness
and loyalty to me, as to all her family and
friends, make this dedication a pleasure
and a joy only commensurate
with my thought of her.

PREFACE

I have divided this book into three distinct parts. Part I, Trench Ballads, consists of forty American soldier poems of America’s participation in the World War, 1917-19, based entirely on actual facts and incidents, and almost exclusively on my own personal experiences and observations, when a private in Company G, 16th Infantry, First Division, of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Part II, Pre-war Poems, consists of three sets of verses written just before the active entry of America in the war, and appertaining to, but not an integral part of, it, and therefore grouped separately. Part III, Other Poems, contains those of a general and non-military character.

It is highly desirable the “Notes” at the end of this volume should be consulted, and that it be realized that with few exceptions, all these Trench Ballads were written in France, many scribbled on odd pieces of paper or on old envelopes in the trenches themselves, and consequently, when present locality is intimated, it is always France, that is to say, from the standpoint that I am speaking in and from the seat of operations. For example, when I use the term “over here,” it really means what the people at home in America would call “over there.” Hyperbole or little characteristic anecdotes that really never occurred, except in the brain of an author, I have absolutely shunned, and have endeavored to adhere strictly to “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” and to set forth the vicissitudes; the dangers, joys and tribulations of the army man, and especially the man in the ranks, and more especially the man in the ranks of the Infantry, as these latter formed the actual front-line or combat troops that bore the brunt in this greatest of all wars.

Absolute continuity or sequence would seem superfluous, but it will be observed that I have endeavored to maintain it to a certain extent, i.e., by gradually leading from a number of military verses, without any strict inter-relation, to the day of being wounded, then on to several poems concerning the military hospital, and finally bringing the Trench Ballads to a close with those having to do with the returning home of the soldier.

My previous book, “Army Ballads and Other Verses,” is the result of my experiences when serving as a private in Companies “L” and “G,” 23rd Infantry and Troop “I,” 5th Cavalry (Regulars), during the Philippine Insurrection of 1899-1902, and if “Army Ballads and Other Verses” is taken in conjunction with this volume, it is my hope together they may prove a fairly comprehensive anthology of the American soldier of recent times.

E. C. G.
Philadelphia,
November 1st, 1919.

MY COMRADES IN THE RANKS.

You chose no easy Service,
No safe job, friends of mine,
But the mud of the shell-torn, trenches
And the foremost battle-line.
No camouflage patriotism—
Though you had from a wealth to choose
But the wicked work of No Man’s Land,
Filling a man’s-size shoes.

You didn’t say you wouldn’t play
If you got no shoulder bars—
You even placed your Country
Above a general’s stars:
For shocking, very shocking,
You didn’t give a damn
About your “social status,”
When you fought for Uncle Sam.

Friends of mine, friends of mine,
I’ve shared your toil and tears—
Your dangers and your little woes,
When days were turned to years.
I may not make them understand
The things that you have done,
But God bless you and God keep you—
Every blessed mother’s son.

PART I. TRENCH BALLADS.

TRENCHES.

Trenches dripping, wet and cold—
Trenches hot and dry—
Long, drab, endless trenches
Stretching far and nigh.

Zigzag, fretted, running sere
From the cold North Sea,
’Cross the muddy Flanders plain
And vales of Picardy.

Through the fields of new, green wheat
Filled with poppies red,
While abandoned plow-shares show
Whence the peasants fled.

Past the great cathedral towns,
Where each gorgeous spire
Torn and tottering, slowly wilts
‘Neath the Vandals’ ire.

Hiding in the shadows
Of the hills of French Lorraine,
And bending south through rugged heights
To the land of sun again.

Trenches, endless trenches,
Shod with high desire—
All that man holds more than life,
And touched with patriot fire.

Trenches, endless trenches,
Where tightening draws the cord
’Round the throat of brutal Kultur,
And its red and dripping sword.

Trenches, endless trenches,
Bleached and choked with rain,
Could ye speak what tales ye’d tell
Of honor, death and pain.

Could ye speak, what tales ye’d tell
Of shame and golden worth,
To the glory and damnation
Of the spawn of all the Earth.

BARB-WIRE POSTS.

Five o ’clock; the shadows fall
In mist and gloom and cloud;
And No Man’s Land is a sullen waste,
Wrapped in a sodden shroud;
And the click of Big Mac’s moving foot
Is a dangerous noise and loud.

Ten o’clock; the wind moans low—
Each tree is a phantom gray:
And the wired posts are silent ghosts
That move with a drunken sway;
(But never a gleam in No Man’s Land
Till the dawn of another day).

Twelve o ‘clock; the heavens yawn
Like the mouth of a chasm deep;
And see—that isn’t the fence out there—
It’s a Boche—and he stoops to creep—
I’ll take a shot—oh hell, a post—
(Oh God, for a wink o’ sleep).

Two o ’clock; the cold wet fog
Bears down in dripping banks:
Ah, here they come—the dirty hounds—
In swinging, serried ranks!
Why don’t the automatics start? . . .
Or do my eyes play pranks?

It doesn’t seem a column now,
But just two sneaking there:
And one is climbing over,
While the other of the pair
Is clipping at the wires
With exasperating care.

(I’m sober as a gray-beard judge
I’m calm as the morning dew—
I’m wide awake and I’ll stake
My eyes with the best of you;
But I can’t explain just how or why
Posts do the things they do.)

Three o’clock; they’re on the move—
Well, let the beggars come. . . .
A crash — a hush — a spiral shriek—
And a noise like a big bass drum—
(I hope that Hun shot hasn’t found
Our kitchen and the slum).

. . . . . . . . . .

Five o’clock; the first faint streak
Of a leaden dawn lifts gray;
And the barb-wire posts are sightless ghosts
That swagger, click and sway,
And seem to grin, in their blood-stained sin,
In a most unpleasant way.

FEET.

Some say this war was fought and won
With gleaming bayonets,
That lift and laugh with Death’s own chaff
And leave no fond regrets:
Some, by the long lean foul-lipped guns
Where the first barrages meet,
But I, by the poor old weary limping
Tired broken feet.

Some say this war was fought and won
By the crawling, reeking gas;
Some, by the flitting birdmen,
That dip and pause and pass:
Some, by the splitting hand-grenades—
But I, I hear the beat
Of the poor old faithful worn limping
Tired broken feet.

Some say the war was fought and won
By This or That or Those—
But I, by heel and sunken arch
And blistered, bleeding toes.
Drag on, drag on, oh weary miles,
Through mire, slush and sleet,
To the glory of the rhythm
Of the poor old broken feet.

YOUR GAS-MASK.

When over your shoulders your “full-field” you fling,
And you curse the whole load for a horrible thing,
What is it you reach for, as outward you swing?
Your gas-mask.

If you head for a bath by the small river’s flow—
Though only a distance of fifty or so—
What is it you carefully grab ere you go?
Your gas-mask.

When in full marching-order, where mules might suffice,
And you count your equipment, each having its price,
What is it you feel for and count over twice?
Your gas-mask.

In morning and afternoon, evening and night—
In first or support lines, in sleep or in fight,
What is it you cherish and cling to so tight?
Your gas-mask.

What is it you never leave thoughtless behind?
What is it you clutch for with fingers that bind
As you sniff that first odor that comes on the wind?
Your gas-mask.

SLUM AND BEEF STEW.

It’s a lot of dirty water
And some little dabs of spuds,
And dubious hunks of gristly meat
And divers other duds.

Served up to us in trenches,
Our hunger made it good,
But elsewhere—when we got it—
"We ate it, if we could.

And now about the time Josephus
Tells his gobs to call
Port and Starboard, left and right,
We’re ordered, one and all,

To most respectfully address
Our slum as “beef stew”—Gosh,
Methinks the Brains of the Army
Has dished-up awful bosh.

For slum is slum, and your Tummy-tum
Has called it so for aye;
As ‘twas when Thotmes III marched north
To check the Hittites’ sway.

As ‘twas when Cyrus’ doughboys swept
Through the Cilician Gates—
And as ’twill ever be so long
As a weary mess-line waits.

So long as Nations fight and eat—
Though all don’t feed as well—
For the Colonel is Sitting on the World—
While we are S. O. L.

Perhaps, kind friend, our logic may
Strike you as on the bum—
But as we’re Pershing’s slum-hounds,
We’ll call the damn thing “slum”.

SHELL-FIRE.

The Hun he taught us Gas and things—
But the high explosive shell
Was born of the Devil’s mirth
And the reddest forge in Hell.

Now one hits the village church,
And the ancient, wavering wall
And the little pointed tower swing
And stagger and sway and fall.

Now one hits a red-slag roof,
And eighty feet on high
Towers a monstrous, salmon cloud
Against an azure sky.

Now one hits in a field of wheat,
Fresh planted, fair and green,
And a mighty, thundering crater bursts
Where abandoned plows careen.

Now one nears with spiral shriek
And strikes in the long white road,
And the Lord ha’ mercy on the Red Cross truck,
And its helpless, weary load.

Now one comes where you crouching wait
In the trench’s far-flung line,
And you know there is never shelter against
The voice of that deadly whine.

Now one pierces the dugout’s roof,
And when the foul smokes pass,
What once was there a dozen men
Is a crimson, clotted mass.

In the pale moonlight or the black of night—
When the sunset fires flare—
In the noontime’s calm, without alarm,
The Great Arch Fiend is there,
With his frightful cry as he rushes nigh
On his errand of despair.

MR. FLY.

There’s a nice stiff breeze ablowing,
Mr. Fly;
That keeps from out my trench.
The decomposing stench
Of a soldier, Boche or French,
Mr. Fly.

So please run off and play,
Mr. Fly.
So please run off and play
Like a good fly, right away,
For I want to sleep today,
Mr. Fly.

I’m dozing like a bull-finch,
Mr. Fly,
When you hop me, unaware,
And I wake and swat and swear,
And you return with thoughtful care,
Mr. Fly.

Can’t you see I’m very tired,
Mr. Fly?
That the G. I. Cans don’t bust,
And I’ve nibbled on a crust,
And deserve a snooze, I trust,
Mr. Fly.

Do you think it’s square and decent,
Mr. Fly,
When the Cooties cease to bite,
(And there is no sleep at night)
That you give me no respite,
Mr. Fly?

An hour’s calm is with us,
Mr. Fly;
And the endless battle strain,
And the shelling and the rain,
Ought to make it very plain,
Mr. Fly—

That I need a little nap,
Mr. Fly.
That I do need mighty well
Just to sun and rest a spell,
And to sleep here where I fell,
Mr. Fly.

So have a heart, oh have a heart!
Mr. Fly.
If you’re looking for a fight
And you must come ’round and bite,
Make your visit in the night,
Mr. Fly.

THE SALVATION ARMY WITH THE A. E. F.

You kept no roped-off rows of chairs
Or clubs “For Officers Only,”
But you toiled for John Doe when he was
Cold, tired, wet and lonely.

You didn’t squander millions
On soldiers warming benches,
But you worked like blazes for the ones
That frequented the trenches.

You didn’t stick to cast-iron rules
Of business most punctilious,
And you never treated Private Doe
With manner supercilious.

You had no boundless backing—
But just inside your doors
It seemed like, “Feel to home, Bill—
Sit down, the place is yours.”

Some things we fain remember—
Some things we fain forget—
But you, oh kindly people,
Live in our memory yet.

SHELL-HOLES.

They’re ugly, jagged, cone-shaped holes
That litter up the ground,
That ruin all the landscape
For miles and miles around.

That pock-mark fertile fields of green—
That rip the hard French roads,
And catch the lumbering trucks at night
Agroan beneath their loads.

And some of them are little uns
The shrill one-pounders plow—
About a meter—edge to edge—
But large enough, I trow.

And some of them nigh twice as broad,
And rather more straight down,
The “77” Boches’ gift,
Of dubious renown.

And some of them a dozen feet
From rim to ragged rim,
And deep enough to hide a horse—
A crater, gaunt and grim.

And some of them are yellow-black,
Where clings the reek of gas,
(But here we do not pause to gaze,
Nor linger as we pass).

And some of them are water-fouled—
Or dried and parched and dun;
And some of them are newly turned—
Fresh blotches ’neath the sun.

But all spell red destruction,
Blind rage and blinding hate,
To them who charge the shell-swept zone
Or in the trenches wait.

Should we say “all,” or modify
Our statement? Any fool
Knows that exceptions always rise
To prove an iron-clad rule.

And so in this case we can name
Some shell-holes we have met,
The thought of whose engulfing sides
Clings in our memory yet.

They were the holes we rolled into—
When iron or bullet struck—
Cursing the cursed Prussian,
And blessing our blesséd luck.

Oh lovely, beauteous shell-hole,
Wherein we helpless lay,
A wondrous couch of velvet
Ye seemed to us that day.

Our blood it stained your cushions
A deep and richer red,
As shrieking messengers of death
Sped harmless overhead.

Swept whining in their blood-lust,
Hell’s music, bleak and grim,
Splitting in rage the edges
Of your all-protecting rim.

Oh shell-holes, murderous shell-holes,
In vales of grass and wheat—
On hillside and in forest,
In road and village street—

Your toll of suffering and death
Is flashed to East and West—
But tell they of the wounded
Ye’ve sheltered in your breast?

FOOD.

We’ve eaten at the Plaza, at Sherry’s and the Ritz—
The Bellevue and the Willard and the Ponce de Leon
too.
We’ve sampled all the cooking of the Savoy and
Meurice,
Through a palate-tickling riot that Lucullus never
knew.

From tables where the Northern Fires greet the
coming night—
To Raffles out in Singapore and the Palace in Bombay;
From Shepheard’s (which means Cairo) to that little
hostelry
Way down in Trinchinopoly where purring punkahs
sway.

We’ve traveled north, we’ve traveled south by all
routes known to man—
We’ve traveled east, we ’ve traveled west by some they
scarcely came:
From canvasback and terrapin to Russian caviar,
From venison to bird-nest soup and curried things
and game.

We’ve put them all beneath our belt with consummate
address:
We’ve risen from the laden board and smacked our
jowl in glee.
With organs sound and healthy we have murdered
each menu
And left the wreck of good things with a gourmet’s
ecstasy.

But do you wish to know the feasts that permeated
deep—
That stirred the very bottom of my stomach to the
core?
Quisine that brought such wondrous bliss, but satiated
not, That saturating satisfied, but still left room for more?

The place—a little half deserted town in northern
France:
The time—a time of carnage, of wanton strife and
hate:
And I and my battalion on reserve a week or two
Till they call us to the Front again to force the hands
of Fate.

Just from the Commissary, the Salvation or the Y,
I’ve got a bar of chocolate, some butter and some cake;
A canteen full of milk, and eggs, from the old
farmhouse near by,
And with this tout ensemble you can see I’m sitting
jake.

I’ve entered now a peasant’s house—an ancient,
kindly dame—
Who’s seen me several times before, and knows just
what I wish:
So the frying-pan is gotten out—the pewter fork and
knife— A big bowl and the skillet and a large, substantial
dish.

And I’m breaking up the bar of chocolate in a mighty
bowl
(The while the eggs are frying, “Sur le plat, oui, s’il
vous plait”),
And pouring from my canteen’s gurgling mouth a
draught of milk,
To expedite proceedings in a purely tactful way.

And now the spluttering eggs are done, the chocolate’s
hot and rich;
I have my feet beneath the board, the pewter weapons
near:
A hunger from a front-line trench—the stomach of a
goat—
And a battle-line that’s very far, though still the guns
ring clear.

And thus, too full for utterance, I gently draw the
veil—
So leave me, kindly reader, in my joy—
And maybe you will understand why other dinners
pale,
And in comparison with this, appear to clog and cloy.

OVER THE TOP.

We’ve soldiered many, many moons
In this old plugging war,
And all the ills and all the thrills,
We’ve had ’em o’er and o’er.

Shell-fire, G. I. Cans and Gas—
Night work in No Man’s Land—
And everything that calls for nerve,
Endurance, guts and sand.

We’ve argued which we liked the worst—
Machine-guns, gas or shell.
We’ve ruminated carefully—
And done it rather well.

And after all our resumé
And cogitating bull,
We’ve reached a clear decision,
Most amplified and full:—

The greatest time in all the life
Of any living man—
The mightiest moment of the Game—
The proudest, high élan;

The thing we came three thousand miles
Across the seas to do—
“The Day,” the splendid hour
That waits for me and you,

Arrives—We spring into the wastes
Of land, ripped, roweled and barred—
The battle-lust in brain and eye—
The weary jaw set hard;

The rifle gripped in hands of steel,
Where, flashing in the sun,
Sweep on our blazing bayonets,
The terror of the Hun.

THE BATTLE MOTHER.

Over the sodden trenches—
Over the skirmish line—
High o’er the hole-torn fields and roads
Cometh a face to mine.

Under the burning gas attack,
And the stench of the bursting shell,
We hope we may live for her dear sake—
She who would wish us well.

(She who has ever cherished us—
But when the hour came
Choked back the tears of the faithful years,
As we left to play the game.)

Between the blazing horizons
That hammer the long night through,
Lapping their tongues of hatred—
Fearless she comes to you.

And over the roar of battle
Where the shrill-voiced shrapnel sings,
Shine forth the loving eyes we hold
Above all earthly things.

A World run mad with slaughter—
A charnel-house of blood—
But the face of the Battle Mother
Above the crimson flood.

SONG OF THE VOLUNTEERS OF 1917.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
The whole big army did,
But we prefer the spirit
Of the Bayard and the Cid.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But when Jack sailed for France,
They didn’t have to drag us in
By the back of our neck and the seat of our pants.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But when it first began,
From coast to coast, from Lakes to Gulf,
We rose, a single man.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But when the days were black,
Glad we sprang to the call to front
The snarling, charging pack.

The red-fanged, savage hounds of hate,
In a victor’s drunken might:
The unleashed, howling gray hordes
Sweeping plain and height.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But when the great floes pressed,
Came we to break the ice and clear
A channel for the rest.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But now the thing is o’er,
We ’re glad we came the way we came
When the Nation rose to war.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
But now the thing is done,
We’re glad we came the time we came
In the heyday of the Hun.

Shades of Patrick Henry—
Of Washington and Hale,
God grant we’ve kept the trust—God grant
The Old Guard shall not fail.

The drafted men fought hard and well,
The whole vast army did,
But we prefer the spirit
Of the Bayard and the Cid.

O. D.

O. D., it ought to mean Oh Damn,
When in the pay of Uncle Sam:
But when you hear the soldier blab
“O. D.,” it just means Olive Drab.

The leggings, breeches and the boots
Of Uncle Samuel’s war galoots—
The overcoats and jackets too,
Confess the selfsame mournful hue.

It may be excellent camouflage
To try to fool a young barrage;
It may not show the bally dirt
So much upon your knees and shirt.

It may be serviceable and such
When you are beating-up the “Dutch;”
But from a calm esthetic point,
The color’s sadly out-of-joint.

A little mud on red or blue
May seem quite prominent to you;
But put the same upon O. D.,
And the whole blame thing looks mud to me.

But then, it matches trenches well,
And things that make you say, Oh Hell
For instance, hikes, inspections, drills,
And busted arms with C. C. pills.

It makes you heave a sigh or two
For the good old days of brass and blue;
But if it’s fit to beat the “Dutch”
I guess it doesn’t matter much.

ARTILLERY REGISTERING.

They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench—
My boy.
They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench,
Which means tonight they’ll surely drench
These works with shells that burst and stench
(And cloy).

They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench—
My lad.
It breaks with shrill and tinny sound,
And quite promiscuously around
It showers metal on the ground
(It’s bad).

They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench—
Recruit.
So do not stand and stupid stare
Till some comes down and parts your hair,
But hunt your dugout and beware
(To boot).

They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench—
Young man.
Which means tonight the gas shells’ thud
Will muffled fall like chunks of mud;
And th’ blinding, crashing Prince of Blood—
The G. I. Can.

They’re shooting shrapnel o’er the trench—
My child.
And ere the dawn is turning gray—
You mark the very words I say—
There’s going to be hell to pay
(High piled).

RECIPROCITY.

We haven’t been in this large strife
So very long to date,
But we have learned our answer to
The Prussian “Hymn of Hate.”
And we are feeding him for pap,
As plain as A. B. C,
A pretty little ditty known
As “Reciprocity.”

The Hun he planned for War, red War,
By ocean, air and land;
And he is getting oodles of
The same, to date, in hand.
He suddenly sprang poison gas
Upon a valiant foe,
And now he’s getting gas and gas,
And more gas, as you know.

He found new tricks and wrinkles for
This gory battle game,
And now we stoop, no more his dupe,
And beat him at the same.
He drowned our women in the sea—
He ravished where he won—
But these were little things we couldn’t
Copy from the Hun.

His crimson heel lie bade us feel,
His lust and pride and scorn—
Till, echoing in our weary breasts
A righteous hate was born. . . . .
Beware the patient man in wrath,
The olden proverb saith;
And, Spawn of a Kultur nursed in blood—
In blood meet ye your death.

TRUCKS.

Lunging-wild, careening trucks
Plunging through the rain,
Sweeping down the rainbow road
To the sunlit plain.
And echoing back with ponderous roar
Their cargo’s wild refrain.

We’re bowling over the roads of France—
White roads.
We’re twenty gray tracks in a long, long line,
Twisting and rumbling and feeling fine.
And some day we’ll roll to the Watch on the Rhine—
Joyous loads.

But now we’re returning to billets for rest—
Earned repose.
We’ve been in the trenches for many a week.
In rain and in wind and in dugouts that leak.
Till we all are so hoarse we scarcely can speak.
Goodness knows.

Our clothes they are worn and tattered and torn,
And mud?
My heavens! we have it in our leggings and hair—
On breeches and jackets and all that we wear—
But we are so happy, we really don’t care—
’Tisn’t blood.

It isn’t those long, endless vigils at night,
On the rack.
It isn’t the fighting and hunger and heat—
It isn’t the slush and rheumatics and sleet—
It isn’t the once-a-day cold meal we eat
In the black.

It isn’t the shelling from sun unto sun—
Curséd shells:
It isn’t the camouflage that you must use
If you have to lie down in your trench for a snooze,
It isn’t the stenches the Hun corpses choose
For their smells.

But it’s clean clothes and gasoline-bath and a shave—
What a treat!
It’s sleeping on elegant straw, and undressed,
With never a Toto disturbing your rest;
It’s regaining your “pep” and a wonderful zest
When you eat.

We’re all of us willing, we’re all of us game
For the fray:
But now we have finished a good hitch, and more,
In conducting this large and salubrious war,
Do you think we should feel very tearful or sore
On this day?

So some we are singing and some shoot the bull,
And some sleep.
(Don’t wake the poor devil, just leave him alone,
Though he’s jammed on your foot till it’s dead as a
stone),
And we rumble through towns on the way to our own,
Packed like sheep.

And your hand is afingering bills large and small—
Francs galore.
And you’ve visions of things that your poor stomach begs,
Including nuts, candy and chocolate and eggs;
And you find you’ve forgotten the crick in your legs—
Cramped and sore.

We’re a light-hearted, dirty-faced, rollicking crew—
Grimy pawed:
Though a few cogitate on the living and dead,
And some look behindward, and some look ahead,
And some think of bunkies that shrapnel has sped
To their God.

Lunging-wild, careening trucks
Plunging through the rain,
Sweeping down the rainbow road
To the sunlit plain,
And echoing back with ponderous roar
Their cargo’s wild refrain.

MADEMOISELLE.

Oh Mademoiselle behind the Lines,
When we’re weary and covered with dirt,
And you make a promenade with us,
Or perhaps you mend our shirt.

You know our lives from your brothers,
Or your sweethearts who can’t come back,
But only your laughter greets us
When we shed that awful “pack.”

And some of you sell eggs to us
In a town whence most have fled:
And some of your names have “de” and your blood
Runs blue as well as red.

Oh Mademoiselle you sure are “chic”
From your head to the tip o’ your toes,
And if you like us, you just plain like us,
And you don’t give a damn who knows.

And Mademoiselle those eyes, Oo la la!
So sparkling, dark and rare,
With the love of all the ages lying
Deep and dormant there.

(Please, please don’t think us fickle—
That we didn’t play the game—
But you seemed so human and made to be loved,
And we murmured, “Je vous aime.”)

We hear you’re going back with us
To the tune of ten thousand wives,
And we wish you ten thousand blessings,
And ten thousand happy lives.

So here’s a health to you, Mademoiselle,
Who helped us see it through,
And the load that your laughter lightened
Is the debt that we owe to you.

THE FIRST DIVISION.

American Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1919.

When the clarion call of Country
Bade strong men rise and go,
Came they the first of the willing first,
In the pride that leal men know.

When the Eagle soared and its broad wings spread
’Bove the shores of an angered land,
Sailed they the first of the Viking first
Where the treacherous waters spanned.

When the Eagle’s Brood awoke to the shriek
Of the great shells day and night,
First of the flock bled they beneath
The star-flare’s blinding light.

When the lunging, torn front lines locked
And the strife raged man and man,
Swept they the first of the fighting first—
And the van of the battle van.

. . . . . . . . . .

From the training days of Gondrecourt—
Demange—cold, wet and gray—
To the trenches north of Lunéville—
To Bouconville—Xivray—

To the crater-pitted, wasted tracts
Of war-torn Picardy,
And the ghastly rubble hilltop
Where Cantigny used to be:

To the splendid days of Soissons—
The crisis of the strife:
To where giant pincers severed
St. Mihiel as a knife:

To the glorious, stubborn struggle
Up the rugged Argonne slopes,
Till the gates of Sedan crumbled
With the Vandals’ crumbling hopes.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sweeping in conquering columns
To the banks of the vaunted Rhine—
Ever the first of the fighting first,
And the Lords of the Battle Line.

LITTLE GOLD CHEVRONS ON MY CUFFS.

Little gold chevrons on my cuffs,
What do you mean to me?
“We to the left mean hike and drill,
Trenches and mud and heat and chill—
And I to the right for the blood ye spill
Where the Marne runs to the sea.”

Little gold chevrons on my cuffs,
What is the tale ye tell?
“We to the left, of the long months spent
Where the somber seasons slowly blent—
And I to the right, of the ragged rent
That took so long to get well.”

Little gold chevrons on my cuffs,
What do you say to me?
“That ye would not trade us, master mine,
For ribbon or cross or rank, in fine,
That you are ours and we are thine
Through all the years to be.”

A TRIP-WIRE.

If you’re sneaking around on a night patrol,
Trying to miss each cock-eyed hole,
And you choke back a curse from the depths of your soul—
It’s a trip-wire.

If you think there isn’t a thing around
Except the desolate, shell-torn ground,
And you stumble and roll like a spool unwound—
It’s a trip-wire.

If you know a murmur would give the alarm,
And you’ve smothered a cough in the crotch of your arm,
And then you go falling all over the farm—
It’s a trip-wire.

If it’s cold and it’s rainy and everything’s mud,
And you’re groping your way through a nice little flood,
And you stand on your head with an elegant thud—
It’s a trip-wire.

When silence is golden (for “news” is the quest),
And you’re returning and stepping your best,
And your rifle goes part way and you go the rest—
It’s a trip-wire.

THE FAVORITE SONG.

(“There’s a long, long Trail.”)

They sing a song that the pines of Maine
Hear in the winter’s blast—
They sing a song that the riders hum,
Where the cattle plains spread vast;
But there is one they love the most—
And they keep it for the last.

They sing the lays of Puget Sound
Aglimmering in the sun—
Of the cotton fields of Alabam’,
Where the Gulf-bound rivers run,
But one they sing with a wistful look,
When all the rest are done.

They chant of the land of Dixie,
And their “Little Gray Home in the West”—
Of how they’ll “can the Kaiser”—
And they roar with bellowing zest;
But one they sing as it were a prayer—
The song they love the best.

From Xivray to Cantigny—
From Soissons to the Meuse —
From the Argonne wilds to the white-clad Vosges
Agleam in the dawn’s first hues—
They sing a sacred song, for it
Is red with battle-dews.

For it is sanctified by space—
And the cruel wheel of Time;
And sacrifice has hallowed it,
And mellowed every rhyme,
Until it wells from weary throats
A thing men call sublime.

In frozen trench and billet—
In mire, muck and rain—
Where the roar of unleashed batteries
Hurl forth their fires again;
At rest, or back in Blighty,
Torn with shell and pain—

There’s a song they dub the fairest—
There’s a lilt they love the best—
“There’s a long, long trail awinding”
To the haven of their quest,
Where the tip of the rainbow reaches
A land in the golden west.

CAPTAIN BLANKBURG.

“When Greek meets Greek.”

I

They knew he was a German—
They thought he was a spy—
Toujours they “covered” him and said,
“We’ll catch him by-and-by.”

They tried to find, by word or act,
In front-line trench or rear,
Some circumstance that would betray
His treacherous dealings clear.

They scanned his face when hostile flares
Set No Man’s Land alight—
They watched him when the Hun barrage
Tore craters left and right.

They noted every move he made,
With ever wakeful eye,
Reiterating o’er and o’er,
“We’ll catch him by-and-by.”

II

At last the opportunity
Loomed large in fact and view,
And every near-sleuth in the bunch
Saw that his hunch was true.

Because, upon an inky night,
When mist hung o’er the nation,
The captain took a picked patrol
To gather information.

And as they crept on hands and knees,
In Land No Man may own,
Their stomachs struck the dew-wet grass
With never sound or moan.

(The reason being that the Boche,
On selfsame errand set,
Were creeping hitherward unseen—
And likewise mad and wet.)

’Twas then the detail turned their heads
To where their captain lay,
And every rifle in that squad
Was pointed straight his way.

And he? He running true to form,
Two inches raised his chin,
And spouted German volubly
In accents clear and thin.

Click, click, click, click, click, down the line
Each safety-catch turned o’er,
But the captain did not hesitate,
And merely talked the more.

In conversation friendly
He rambled gently on
Unto the Boches’ leader,
Till it was nearly dawn.

The while his men they “covered” him—
The while their hearts grew black—
And you could feel the trigger fingers
Squeezing up the slack.

Just what the purport of his last
Remark was, no one knew,
But in a burst of confidence
A Boche head rose in view. . . .

Across the four-fold stillness
That covers No Man’s Land,
An automatic pistol shot
Rang clear and piercing and

The next day German papers told
How Captain Skunk von Skee
Was killed by a Yankee captain,
And Yankee treachery.

LITTLE WAR MOTHERS.

When you look at his picture and your eyes
Are dimmed and mighty wet,
And it seems as though your trembling hands
Could reach and touch him yet:
When you faintly call and he answers not
Your supplicating prayer,
Remember his last thought was You:
I know—for I was there.

When the day is done and the hearth-fire glows,
And you slowly knit and knit;
And your furtive eyes from the embers rise
To where he used to sit:
And you feel he never can slip up
And kiss you unaware,
Remember his last word was You:
I know—for I was there.

When your dear brave heart is breaking—
And life is ’reft of joy;
And only the spark of memory—
The face of a boy—your boy:
May the good God hover over you,
And touch your silvered hair,
And tell you what I’ve tried to tell:
He knows — for He was there.

INTERRUPTED CHOW.

I’ve had some mighty narrow calls—
Some close shaves not a few,
But one of the fairly closest
I’ll now narrate to you.

’Twas midnight—hush! the plot grows thick—
Crowd close, and hold your breath—
’Twas midnight—and the slum-cart came
Upon its round of death.

(It isn’t really that the slum
Was quite as bad as that,
But the playful Boche so often dropped
A shell where it was at.)

’Twas midnight—and our appetites
Were whetted large and keen,
As trench feed, once a day, must leave
An interval between.

And so we sought the buzzy-cart,
“Mess-kits alert” and found
It standing in a quiet spot
Where never came a sound—

Excepting that of bursting shells
Across the field a way,
(But as I said before, the Boche
Is very given to play).

All innocent and hungry-like
And empty to the core,
I came upon that buzzy-cart,
With never thought of war.

More calm, beneficent and mild—
More free from things of strife—
I promise you I never was
In all my mortal life.

The air was fair, the stars were out,
The mocking-bird sang clear;
The poppies bloomed, the sergeants fumed,
And food was very near.

When suddenly the ground gave way—
It seemed a mile or more—
And the whole adjacent landscape leapt
To heaven with a soar.

Earth, rocks and stars commingling
In a swirling mass arose,
Where I, recumbent in the hole,
Assumed an easy pose.

And when I found that I was there—
Both arms, both legs, and head,
I picked me up and cogitated
Why I wasn’t dead.

For information looked I ’round
North, south and east and west—
But the good platoon had up and cleared
Some several feet with zest.

(And the strangest phase of the whole strange thing,
For me to understand,
Was that when I got up I had
My mess-kit in my hand.)

And there I stood and gazed me down
Upon the hole and mud,
And found I was alive because
That blamed shell was a “dud.”

A dud’s a shell that fails to burst—
Whose crater’s microscopic—
And as I’d just sunk down in it,
My Fates were philanthropic—

For had the bally thing gone off—
Instead of sitting jake—
You’d ne’er have found my scattered parts
With a hair-comb or a rake.

You’d ne’er have found your humble slave—
For, sprinkled east and west,
My sad remains would scarce have bulged
The pocket of your vest.

A finger in Benares—
A toe in Timbuctoo—
And on the Mountains of the Moon
A portion of my shoe.

An eye on Kinchinjanga—
To greet the snow-peaked morn;
An ear at Cape Lopatka,
And my dog-tag at the Horn.

S. O. S.

(Service of Supply.)

There’s an S. O. S. behind the Lines
That feeds us shells and hardtack,
And guns and clothes and beans and things,
And heals our wounds and pain.
There’s an S. O. S. across the seas
That knits for us and writes to us,
Buys bonds and whoops it up for us,
And cheers us on again.

There’s an S. O. S. behind the Lines,
We could not do without it:
Just go and ask the Army,
If you’d know the reasons why.
There’s an S. O. S. across the seas,
And if you ever doubt it,
Just go and ask a soldier,
Who will promptly black your eye.

THE GAS-PROOF MULE.

I’ve heard the cat hath nine lives,
The hen and worm I’ve seen,
But a genuine, long eared, gas-proof mule
Is the toughest thing they wean.

Each night he hauled the water-cart—
(And to know what Water means,
You have to see a trench-bound bunch
When filling their canteens).

However, no digression now,
But straightway to my story,
And I’ll paint that black mule white
And crowned with a crown of glory.

We crowded ’round the faucets—
On each, six waited turns—
The thirstiest crew I ever knew—
With the ingrowing thirst that burns.

And all was peace and quiet—
The pause before the storm—
When the distant, whirling, demon shriek
Of the G. I. Cans took form.

And when the third one got our range,
With haste, but dignity,
We sought the dugouts ’cross the road,
Calm, though precipitously.

But the fastest thing I’ve seen on legs,
And I’ve seen the best, at that.
Was the water-mule when he took the road
At a hundred in nothing flat.

Whether he headed for gay Paree—
For Brussels or Berlin—
We didn’t stop to figure out—
But he sure was headed in.

We only thought of our thirst next day,
And a song we’d heard afar,
Of the farm recruit who bade good-bye
To his “mule with the old hee-haw.”

Well, all that night they threw us gas
And high explosive shells,
And four long hours we wore our masks,
To ward the murderous smells.

And when the first white streak of dawn
Told “Stand-to” was begun,
We stumbled back and took our posts
To wait our friend the Hun.

The Hun did not appear, but gas
Thick clothed both hill and dale
In clouds and sheets of dead-man’s drab,
And down in the deepest vale—

With perfect poise and nonchalance,
Sang-froid and savoir-faire,
Browsed that fool mule, capaciously,
With never thought or care.

INFANTRY OF THE WORLD WAR.

They shall tell of the Arms resplendent—
The men who dared the air;
They shall tell of the work of the mighty guns
Where the far horizons flare:
They shall tell the tale of the Centaurs—
Each rear and flanking drive—
And the song of the Service of Supply,
That kept them all alive.

And when they seem to have finished,
And ye think that the chant is done,
They will tell the tale of the tramping men
In the sweat of a torrid sun.
They will tell the tale of the marching men
Who plod the live-long night,
To reach the crest at the break o’ dawn
When the Nations go to fight.

They will tell the tale of the tired men
Beneath a straining load;
Mile by mile with lunging step
And glassy stare on the road.
They will tell the tale of the front-line trench,
And the one cold meal at night,
And the terrible song of the bursting shells,
And the flares’ uncanny light.

They will tell the tale of the moving ranks
When the zero hour lifts,
And the khaki lines leap forward
In the face of the steel-shod drifts.
Where the great shots split asunder,
And clutter hill and plain
With the weary bodies of the men
Who may not march again.

And so for a wide World’s wonder,
And the ages yet to be,
They will sing in deathless numbers
The song of the Infantry.
They will slowly close the volume—
The story fully told, And a tear shall fall on the cover,
Whose letters are flaming gold.

THE FLOWERS OF FRANCE.

The flowers of France are blooming
Upon this bright June day,
The flowers of France are fragrant
And smiling swing and sway,
(For what is death and carnage
A dozen miles away?)

The flowers of France are blooming
Among the wheat and grass—
The scarlet headed poppies
That nod you as you pass,
And the blue cornflowers’ brilliant hue,
And the daisies in a mass.

The flowers of France are blooming
And beckoning in the breeze,
And laughing in the sunshine,
And bending to the bees,
(But the wooden crosses in a row—
Oh what know they of these?)

The flowers of France are blooming
In every rainbow shade,
And as a rainbow is an arch
By tears of heaven made,
I wonder if the flowers of France
Are the tears that France has paid?

A FIRST-CLASS PRIVATE.

I haven’t a worry or a care—
My mind’s “at ease” and furled:
For I’m a First-class Private,
And I’m Sitting on the World.

The Loot, before the whole platoon,
He up and called me forth
To drill my squad, “Squads east” and “west,”
Not mentioning south and north.
To drill my squad, “Squads ’round-about,”
For all the World to see—
But I’m a First-class Private and
That’s good enough for me.

The Loot he is a dandy man
And all that kind of thing,
And I know he wants to see how I
A corporal’s job could swing:
But back here in a “rest town”
It just means dirty work,
And I must take the bawling-out
For what the squad may shirk.

’Tis I they’d turn and eye with scorn
If some gun wasn’t clean;
’Tis I would play the wet nurse
For a rookie none could wean:
And if a pair of frozen shoes
Makes Smith miss reveille,
It isn’t Smith or “Sunny France,”
It’s me, yes dammit, me.

So forth I take the Squad to drill,
With ne’er a fault or slip;
But a smile is in my glance, forsooth,
And a jest is on my lip,
Akidding with each friend o’mine—
And the Loot was never fain
To try to make a non-com
Of Private Me again.

Trench Ballads, and Other Verses

Trench Ballads and Other Verses

Erwin Clarkson Garrett

Trench Ballads and Other Verses

PREFACE

CONTENTS

PART I—TRENCH BALLADS

PART II—PRE-WAR POEMS

PART III—OTHER VERSES

MY COMRADES IN THE RANKS.

PART I. TRENCH BALLADS.

TRENCHES.

BARB-WIRE POSTS.

FEET.

YOUR GAS-MASK.

SLUM AND BEEF STEW.

SHELL-FIRE.

MR. FLY.

THE SALVATION ARMY WITH THE A. E. F.

SHELL-HOLES.

FOOD.

OVER THE TOP.

THE BATTLE MOTHER.

SONG OF THE VOLUNTEERS OF 1917.

O. D.

ARTILLERY REGISTERING.

RECIPROCITY.

TRUCKS.

MADEMOISELLE.

THE FIRST DIVISION.

LITTLE GOLD CHEVRONS ON MY CUFFS.

A TRIP-WIRE.

THE FAVORITE SONG.

CAPTAIN BLANKBURG.

I

II

LITTLE WAR MOTHERS.

INTERRUPTED CHOW.

S. O. S.

THE GAS-PROOF MULE.

INFANTRY OF THE WORLD WAR.

THE FLOWERS OF FRANCE.

A FIRST-CLASS PRIVATE.