Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

YANKS
A. E. F. VERSE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN

“THE STARS AND STRIPES”

THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

❧

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1919

Copyright, 1919

BY

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

To

THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE

FOREWORD

The A. E. F. was about the most sentimental outfit that ever lived. Most of it—so it seemed to anyone who served on the staff of The Stars and Stripes—wrote poetry. All of it read poetry. “The Army’s Poets” column, in which some hundred thousand lines of verse were printed during the course of the Army newspaper’s existence, was re-read, cut out, sent home, pinned or pasted up in dugouts, Adrian barracks and mess shacks, laughed over and, in all likelihood, wept over.

It was good verse. Occasionally the metre was out of joint, the rhymes faulty, the whole mechanism awry, but it was good verse for all that. For it rang true, every syllable of it, however the scansion may have halted or the expression blundered. It was inspired by mud and cooties and gas and mess-kits and Boche 77’s and home and mother, all subordinated to a determination to stick it through whatever the time and pains involved.

Various anthologies of war verse have appeared in America. Nearly all have consisted almost wholly of the work of non-combatant poets—indeed of professionals—who wrote smoothly, visioned the horror with facile accuracy for what it was, and interpreted well—for people who didn’t get to the war. Yanks is the work of men who got there. It is a source book of A. E. F. emotion.

Yanks is composed entirely of selections from the verse published in The Stars and Stripes during the nine months of its pre-armistice career, and seven months before the Army newspaper, according to the pledge of its editors, was “folded away, never to be taken out again.” The profits from the original edition were to have been used to buy fruit and delicacies for American sick and wounded in overseas hospitals, and would have been but for the decision of the Judge Advocate General of the A. E. F. who, after the publication and sale of the volume, refused to permit the expenditure of the proceeds because of a technicality.

The royalties accruing from the sale of this volume will be devoted to The Stars and Stripes Fund for French War Orphans, to which 600,000 American soldiers gave more than 2,200,000 francs during their stay in France.

This republication is made with the consent and approval of Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, under the direction of the former editorial council of The Stars and Stripes, now associated in the publication of The Home Sector.

CONTENTS

JUST THINKIN’

Standin’ up here on the fire-step,

Lookin’ ahead in the mist,

With a tin hat over your ivory

And a rifle clutched in your fist;

Waitin’ and watchin’ and wond’rin’

If the Hun’s comin’ over to-night—

Say, ain’t the things you think of

Enough to give you a fright?

Things you ain’t even thought of

For a couple o’ months or more;

Things that ’ull set you laughin’,

Things that ’ull make you sore;

Things that you saw in the movies,

Things that you saw on the street,

Things that you’re really proud of,

Things that are—not so sweet.

Debts that are past collectin’,

Stories you hear and forget,

Ball games and birthday parties,

Hours of drill in the wet;

Headlines, recruitin’ posters,

Sunsets ’way out at sea,

Evenings of pay days—golly,

It’s a queer thing, this memory!

Faces of pals in Homeburg

Voices of women folk,

Verses you learnt in schooldays

Pop up in the mist and smoke,

As you stand there, grippin’ that rifle,

A-starin’, and chilled to the bone,

Wonderin’ and wonderin’ and wonderin’,

Just thinkin’ there—all alone!

When will the war be over?

When will the gang break through?

What will the U. S. look like?

What will there be to do?

Where will the Boches be then?

Who will have married Nell?

When’s that relief a-comin’ up?

Gosh! But this thinkin’s hell!

Hudson Hawley, Pvt., M.G. Bn.

TO THE KID SISTER

You were only a kid, little sister,

When I started over the sea,

But you’ve grown quite a lot since I came here,

And you’ve written a letter to me,

And nobody knows that you wrote it—

It’s a secret—and we’ll keep it well,

Your brother and you and the ocean,

And nobody’s going to tell.

You were only a tot when I left you.

I remember I bade you goodbye

And kissed you, a little bit flustered,

And you promised you never would cry.

But I know that you cried, little sister,

As soon as I’d gone out the door,

And did I cry myself? I’m a soldier,

So don’t ask me anything more.

I think of you often, kid sister—

You’re the only kid sister I’ve got—

I know you’ll be good to your mother,

And I know that you’ll help her a lot.

And whenever she seems to be gloomy,

You’ve just got to cheer her somehow—

You were only a kid to your brother,

But you’re more than the world to him now.

J. T. W., Pvt., A.S.

CORP’RAL’S CHEVRONS

Oh, the General with his shiny stars, leadin’ a parade,

The Colonel and the Adjutant a-sportin’ of their braid,

The Major and the Skipper—none of ’em look so fine

As a newly minted corp’ral comin’ down the line!

Oh, the Bishop in his mitre, pacin’ up the aisle,

The Governor, frock-coated, with a votes-for-women smile,

The Congressman, the Mayor, aren’t in it, I opine,

With a newly minted corp’ral comin’ down the line!

YOU’RE NOT A FAN, PIERRETTE

I’ll take you to the Follies, dear,

If there you think you’d like to go;

I’ll buy you beaucoup wine and beer

Down at the gay Casino show;

In short, I’ll do whatever task

Your little heart desires to name

Save one: You must not ever ask

To see another baseball game.

Your understanding is immense

At “compreying” the jokes they spring

In vaudeville shows—and you’re not dense

Because you like to hear me sing.

But, cherie, you will never be

The one to set my heart aflame,

Because you simply cannot see

The inside of a baseball game.

When you and I were watching while

The Doughboys battled the Marines,

Did classy hitting make you smile?

Did you rejoice in home run scenes?

Ah, no; when Meyer slammed the pill—

They couldn’t find it for a week—

You turned to me and said, “Oh, Bill,

I sink hees uniform ees chique.”

And did you holler “Atta Boy!”

When Powell zipped ’em, one, two, three,

And made the Doughboys dance with joy—

Was yours the voice that rose in glee?

Not so; you made your escort feel

Like one big, foolish, roasted goose,

When all the bleachers heard you squeal,

“But, Bill, hees nose ees so retrousse.”

So when you don your new chapeau

Hereafter for a promenade,

Remember that no more we’ll go

To sit beneath the grandstand shade;

Your curtain calls are surely great

Where Thespians tread the boards of fame,

But, Gosh! you can’t appreciate

A good old Yankee baseball game.

S. H. C.

MY SWEETHEART

I saw her in a dream as though in life,

Her form, her soft blue eyes, her eider hair,

Which fell as silken, golden portals, draped

Before her bosom fair.

She whispered in my ear, “Sweetheart, be brave,

We’ll back you up in all you do and dare.”

Then bending o’er, she pressed her lips to mine ...

I woke—she was not there.

Frank C. McCarthy, Sgt., A.S.

DAD’S LETTERS

My dad ain’t just the letter writin’ kind—

He’d rather let the women see to that;

He’s got a mess o’ troubles on his mind,

And likes to keep ’em underneath his hat.

And p’raps because he isn’t very strong

On talkin’, why, he’s kind o’ weak on ink;

But he can work like sin the whole year long,

And, crickey, how that dad o’ mine can think!

When I set out from Homeville last July,

He didn’t bawl the way my sister did;

He just shook hands and says, “Well, boy, goodbye.”

(He’s got his feelin’s, but he keeps ’em hid.)

And so when mother writes about the things

That I spend half my time a-thinkin’ of,

There’s one short line that every letter brings:

“Father will write, and meanwhile sends his love.”

“Father will write.” Well, some day p’raps he will—

There’s lots of funny prophecies come true;

But if he just keeps promisin’ to, still,

I’ll understand, and dad’ll know I do.

MLLE. SOIXANTE-QUINZE

Oh, a mistress fit for a soldier’s love

Is the graceful 75;

As neat and slim, and as strong and trim

As ever a girl alive.

Where the steel-blue sheen of her mail is seen,

And the light of her flashing glance,

In the broken spray of the roaring fray

Is the soul of embattled France.

Her love is true as the heaven’s blue—

She will fight for her love till death;

Her hate is a flame no fear can tame,

That slays with the lightning’s breath.

For the sun of day turns fogged and gray,

And night is a reeling hell

When she swings the flail of the shrapnel’s hail,

Or looses the bursting shell.

From high Lorraine to the Somme and the Aisne,

She has held at bay the Hun,

That with broken strength he may pay, at length,

For the sins that his race has done;

For Alsace, torn from the mother land,

Ravished and mocked and chained;

For Belgium, nailed to the martyr’s cross,

For holding her faith unstained.

Thou Maid, who cam’st, like a beacon flame,

In thy people’s darkest hour,

Who bade them thrill with patriot will

By the spell of thy mystic power,

As thou gav’st them heart to speed the dart

From arquebus and bow,

Give us to drive, with the 75,

Our bolts on a baser foe,

That we who have come from Freedom’s home

Across the western wave,

Such blows shall give that France may live

As once for us she gave.

May our good guns play with a stinging spray

On the Prussian ranks of war,

And smite them yet as did Lafayette

The hireling Huns of yore!

May we aim again at a tyrant’s men

As straight and swift a blow

As at Yorktown came, with smoke and flame,

From the guns of Rochambeau!

Oh, a mistress fit for our soldier love

Is the soixante-quinze, our boast,

Our hope and pride, like a new-won bride,

But the dread of the Kaiser’s host!

J. M. H., F.A.

HOME IS WHERE THE PIE IS

“Home is where the heart is”—

Thus the poet sang;

But “home is where the pie is”

For the doughboy gang.

Crullers in the craters

Pastry in abris—

Our Salvation Army lass

Sure knows how to please.

Watch her roll the pie crust

Mellower than gold;

Watch her place it neatly

Within its ample mold;

Sniff the grand aroma

While it slowly bakes—

Though the whine of Minnie shells

Echoes far awakes.

Tin hat for a halo!

Ah, she wears it well!

Making pies for homesick lads

Sure is “beating hell”;

In a region blasted

By fire and flame and sword,

Our Salvation Army lass

Battles for the Lord!

Call me sacrilegious,

And irreverent, too;

Pies? They link us up with home

As naught else can do!

“Home is where the heart is”—

True, the poet sang;

But “home is where the pie is”

To the Yankee gang!

HOW IT WORKS OUT

When Jonesy joined the Army he had all the dope down fine.

Said he, “I’d ought to land the cush, though serving in the line.

A private’s pay is thirty, then by adding ten per cent—

That’s thirty-three,

And now lessee,

In this here now French currency—

Five-sixty rate,

Makes one-eight-eight,

Or thereabouts; why, hell! that’s great!

It’s more’n enough

To buy me stuff,

And let me throw a swell front bluff.

Because my chow

Is paid for now,

And I don’t need but to allow

A little kale

For vin or ale,

And maybe some day blow a frail

To vo-de-vee

In gay Paree

Or some live joint like that citee—

Why, I’ll be flush—besides, Friend Govt. is staking me the rent.”

On pay day Jones was right on deck, an outstretched cap in view—

He thought by trusting to his hands some clackers might leak through.

He’d planned to split his wages among all the leading banks,

But the Q.M.

Just said, “Ahem

Expenses come

To quite a sum,

Though where the tin is coming from

Is not my care,

But your affair.

We’ll have to charge you for a pair

Of leggins lost,

Ten francs the cost;

On board the ship we note you tossed

A cigarette

Into the wet—