The Happy Warrior Read Online Free Page A

and children, and wives!
    The Empire needed your arm, lads,
    To help her to save those lives.
    Are you sorry you fought that battle,
    And sorry you faced those shells;
    Sorry you helped to storm those great heights
    Back there in the Dardanelles?
    What was the pain to the glory, lads,
    What was the price to the gain?
    Your country is proud to claim you hers,
    To immortalise your name.
    Heroes for ever, thro’ all time
    On hist’ry’s pages to shine
    What are the marks of the campaign
    To the names on ev’ry line?
    You can stand before the coward,
    A man amongst men today;
    Tho’ the marks of the battle remain,
    â€™Twas a noble price to pay.
    In the years that face you, soldiers,
    There may be some who will scorn,
    Because you are not as robust
    As you were on the battle morn.
    But you need not fear those jibes, lads,
    You have earned a crown more fair
    Than all the beauty they can claim,
    In the battle scars you bear.
    E. Power-Pinn
----
    Heliopolis : Egypt : Land of Sand
    Oh! Egypt, land of dreams and visions
    Of dirty towns and street collisions,
    Where Arabs sell their greasy wares
    And cabbies charge you double fares,
    Where sin and wickedness, dirt and smells
    Makes this a disease-stricken hell,
    A land of sand and desert plain
    Where no such thing is known as rain,
    A drink of water is a treasure
    And tucker’s issued in half measure,
    Where donks and camels bear huge loads
    Across loose sand in place of roads,
    Where donkeys, goats, fowls, dogs and natives
    All live together, like relatives:
    Such sights are common over here
    Where Soldiers drink cheap doped-up beer
    Then fall, drunk, helpless in the sand;
    It makes your hair on end to stand
    Two drinks will make a man dead tight
    And make him argue all the night
    Until his sleepy mates rebel
    And wish him and his beer in hell;
    â€™Tis here, midst sweltering sun and skies,
    Tormented by insects and flies
    The soldier trudges, sick and sore,
    Cursing the Kaiser, and the war,
    Which brought him from his home to dwell
    In this dreary dried up land of hell.
    Tpr W. H. Johnstone (?)
    8th ALH, AIF
    (AWM PR 84/049)
----
    Over There
    Over there, it’s in the air,
    The smell of death is everywhere,
    Unburied bodies lying ’round,
    Bits of flesh upon the ground.
    Grotesque shapes of shattered bone
    Stand like sentinels alone;
    Where once were living breathing men,
    Now hidden, now turned up again.
    Tiny flags of flapping rags
    Flutter in the air,
    Or stiff with mud and dried in blood,
    Mutely cry, “Beware!”
    Beware of man for he has been,
    And look what he has done.
    Before another moon does rise,
    Once more man will come,
    Leaving death and darkness
    Ever in his wake.
    Greg Brooks
----
    Night Attack
    Do you see the cannon flashing?
    Do you hear their fire crashing
    On the enemy emplacements far away?
    With the infantry advancing,
    In expectation prancing,
    Eager to move up and join the fray.
    Our eyes are blinded by the flash,
    Our ears are deafened by the crash
    Of rapid firing high explosive rounds,
    While the cordite smoke surrounds us
    Spreads an eerie haze around us,
    And the cartridge cases gleam upon the ground.
    The artillery is booming,
    Their muzzle flash illuming
    Shedding temporary daylight all around,
    While the enemy is quaking,
    In trenches they are shaking,
    Trying to dig deeper in the ground.
    But they really needn’t bother,
    The artillery will smother them,
    And bury them in craters deep and wide;
    Then any who are left to fight,
    By bayonet will be put to flight,
    As the infantrymen sweep them all aside.
    Greg Brooks
----
    The Show Went on Forever
    They came in the summer of ’fourteen.
    Like daytrippers from Dover they crossed,
    With expectations of glory, swaggering proud.
    Whilst the lie that war is noble dripped
    Like poison from insipid lips
    Of politician and statesman,
    And urging angry crowd.
    They thought it would be a short war:
    â€œGive the Hun a bloody nose,
    By Christmas it will all be