The decks are deep with men,
We’re going out to God knows what,
We’ll be back God knows when.
Old friends are at our sides,
Old songs drift out to sea,
Oh, it is good to go to war
In such a company.
The sun is on the waves
That race to meet the sky,
Where strange new shores reach out to us—
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye,
A long and weary while,
Through all the drab and empty days,
Remember us and smile.
Our good ship shoulders on
Along a lane of foam,
And every turn the screw goes round
Is farther still from home.
We’ll miss the things we left,
The more the white miles fly,
So keep them till we come again—
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.
THE FIELDS OF THE MARNE
The fields of the Marne are growing green,
The river murmurs on and on;
No more the hail of mitrailleuse,
The cannon from the hills are gone.
The herder leads the sheep afield,
Where grasses grow o’er broken blade;
And toil-worn women till the soil
O’er human mold, in sunny glade.
The splintered shell and bayonet
Are lost in crumbling village wall;
No sniper scans the rim of hills,
No sentry hears the night bird call.
From blood-wet soil and sunken trench,
The flowers bloom in summer light;
And farther down the vale beyond,
The peasant smiles are sad, yet bright.
The wounded Marne is growing green,
The gash of Hun no longer smarts;
Democracy is born again,
But what about the troubled hearts?
FRANK CARBAUGH, Sgt., Inf.
(Written while lying wounded in hospital; died August, 1918.)
A NURSE’S PRAYER
O Lord, I must not cry,
And yet mine eyes contain
Such floods of scalding tears
That they will never dry,
Descending soft as rain,
Through all the coming years.
Cor Jesu, I must weep,
When I behold the sight!
These men who fought and bled,
Who moan and cannot sleep,
Their souls so snowy white,
The wounded and the dead.
THOMAS F. COAKLEY, Lt., Chaplain.
LINES ON LEAVING A LITTLE TOWN WHERE WE RESTED
We with the war ahead,
You who have held the line,
Laughing, have broken bread
And taken wine.
We cannot speak your tongue,
We cannot fully know
Things hid beneath your smile
Four years ago.
Things which have given us,
Grimly, a common debt,
Now that we take the field,
We won’t forget!
RUSSELL LORD, Corp., F. A.
POPPIES
Poppies in the wheat fields on the pleasant hills of France,
Reddening in the summer breeze that bids them nod and dance;
Over them the skylark sings his lilting, liquid tune—
Poppies in the wheat fields, and all the world in June.
Poppies in the wheat fields on the road to Monthiers—
Hark, the spiteful rattle where the masked machine guns play!
Over them the shrapnel’s song greets the summer morn—
Poppies in the wheat fields—but, ah, the fields are torn.
See the stalwart Yankee lads, never ones to blench,
Poppies in their helmets as they clear the shallow trench,
Leaping down the furrows with eager, boyish tread
Through the poppied wheat fields to the flaming woods ahead.
Poppies in the wheat fields as sinks the summer sun,
Broken, bruised and trampled—but the bitter day is won;
Yonder in the woodland where the flashing rifles shine,
With their poppies in their helmets, the front files hold the line.
Poppies in the wheat field; how still beside them lie
Scattered forms that stir not when the star shells burst on high;
Gently bending o’er them beneath the moon’s soft glance,
Poppies of the wheat fields on the ransomed hills of France.
JOSEPH MILLS HANSON, Capt., F.A.
POILU
You’re a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap
And your war worn, faded uniform of blue,
With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap,
And your rifle that is ’most as big as you.
You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry song,
Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray,
And the road today you travel stretches rough and red and long,
Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay.
Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the while,
And your days and nights are racking in the line,
There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile,
Oh, so wistful and so patient and so fine.
You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd
To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout,
Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud
And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out.
You’re devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such an air
O’er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run,
And quite often you are noticed in a beard that’s full of hair,
But that heart of yours is always twenty-one.
No, you do not “parlee English,” and you find it very hard,
For you want to chum with us and words you lack;
So you pat us on the shoulder and say, “Nous sommes camarades.”
We are that, my poilu pal, to hell and back.
STEUART M. EMERY, Pvt., M. P.
AS THINGS ARE
The old home State is drier now
Than forty-seven clucks
Of forty-seven desert hens
A-chewin’ peanut shucks.
There everybody’s standin’ sad
Beside the Fishhill store,
A-sweatin’ dust an’ spittin’ rust
Because there ain’t no more.
The constable, they write, has went
A week without a pinch.
There ain’t no jobs, so there’s a gent
’At sure has got a cinch.
I ain’t a’gonna beef a bit,
But still, it’s kinda nice,
A-knowin’ where there’s some to git
Without requestin’ twice.
THE GIRL OF GIRLS
When the war god reached out his talons
And showed me the way to the fray,
My sweethearts shed tears by the gallons—
There was weeping and gnashing that day.
Don’t blame them for crying like babies;
I’m surprised they recovered at all,
’Cause I sure made a hit with the ladies,
Just one look at me and they’d fall.
Take Evelyn or Peggy or Jennie—
They surely were there with the looks,
And I’ve never regretted a penny
I blew in on flowers and books.
And Mildred—that kid was a thriller,
A complexion like peaches and cream;
She was sweeter than Marilynn Miller,
And Phyllis—oh, boy, what a dream!
And now that I’m over the ocean,
I remember them each by their smile;
But there’s one who gets all my devotion,
And I’m thinking of her all the while.
When my clothes need mending and scrubbing,
And only one sock I can find,
And my knuckles are swollen with rubbing,
Why, girlies, you’re far from my mind.
My thoughts are for one who is dearer
Than Phyllis or Peggy or Mae;
Each day that I’m gone she seems nearer—
And she’s feeble, but smiling and gay.
HOWARD A. HERTY, Corp., 1st Army Hq.
THE LITTLE DREAMS
Now, France is a pleasant land to know
If you’re back in a billet town,
And a hell of a hole for the human mole
Where the trenches burrow down;
But where doughboys be in their worn O.D.,
Whatever their daily grinds,
There’s a little dream on this sort of theme
In the background of their minds:
“Oh, gee whiz, I’d give my mess kit
And the barrel off my gat
Just to take a stroll up Main Street
In a new Fedora hat;
Just to hit the Rexall drug store
For an ice-cream soda stew,
And not a doggoned officer
To tell me what to do.”
Here’s a youngster sprawled in an old shell hole
With a Chauchat at his eye;
There’s some wide H.E. on the next O.P.
And a Fokker in the sky.
It’s a hundred yards to his jump-off trench
And ten to the German wire,
But what does he hear, more loud and clear
Than the crack of harassing fire?
Echoed footsteps on the marble
Throbs of a revolving door,
And the starter’s ticking signal—
“Up! Express here—fourteenth floor!”
Click of coins on the cigar stand;
Two stout parties passing by—
“I sold short and took no chances;
Lackawanna’s too damn high.”
Here’s a C.O. down in his dugout deep
Who once was a poor N.G.
The field phone rings and someone sings,
“Red Gulch, sir. 12–9–3
Is spilling lach on Mary Black;
Have Jane retaliate.”
Two minutes more and he hears Jane roar,
While he thinks this hymn of hate:
“That north forty must look pretty,
Head high, now, and ears all set;
And the haystacks in the meadow—
Wonder if they’ve mowed it yet?
Crickets clicking in the stubble;
Apples reddening on the trees—
Oh, good Lord, I’m seeing double;
That’s not gas that made me sneeze.”
Here’s a Q.M. warehouse, locked and still,
At the end of a village street;
The sunset red on the woods ahead,
And a sentry on his beat.
The hour chimes from the ancient spire,
A child laughs out below,
And the sentry’s eyes, on the western skies,
Behold, in the afterglow,
Row on row of smoking chimneys,
Long steel roofs and swinging cranes,
Maze of tracks and puffing engines,
Creeping strings of shunted trains,
Asphalt streets and stuccoed houses,
Lots, with brick and lath piled high;
Whips of shade trees by the curbings,
Yellow trolleys clanging by.
These are tawdry thoughts in an epic time
For martial souls to own?
They are thoughts, my friend, that we would not mend,
That are bred of our blood and bone.
A mustard shell it is very well,
And an egg grenade’s O.K.,
But we get our steam from our little dream
Of the good old U.S.A.
Cotton fields along the river,
Night lights streaming from a mill;
Corn, with curling leaves a-quiver,
Dump cars lining out a fill;
Presses roaring in a basement,
Woods, with waters gleaming through—
Kaiser Bill, we’ll up and go there
When we’ve rid the world of you!
JOSEPH MILLS HANSON, Capt., F.A.
THE R.T.O.
O hear the song of the R.T.O.
With his “40 Hommes or 8 Chevaux.”
He works in the day and he works at night,
For the men must go or the men can’t fight.
They call him here and they call him there,
They ask him Why and they ask him Where.
O his cars don’t come, but his cars must go,
Be it wet or dry or rain or snow,
If they call for Hommes or they want Chevaux.
Thus goes the song of the R.T.O.
O it’s “How we love you, R.T.O.,
With your ’40 Hommes or 8 Chevaux’!
Say, whadja do before the war—
Work in a packin’ house? O Lor’!
We got an army in here now,
And we ain’t got room for our packs and chow.
They’s 40 Hommes aboard, you KNOW,
So come ahead with your 8 Chevaux,
And shout ‘Allez’ and away we’ll go.
O how we LOVE you, R.T.O.!”
Heaven help the R.T.O.
With his “40 Hommes or 8 Chevaux”!
He’s got five hundred men to load
On a few small cars and a busy road.
O the war won’t end if he don’t make good,
’Cause he’s got to send ’em the men and food,
Be it wet or dry or rain or snow.
And they call for Hommes or they want Chevaux,
There’s hell to pay if the stuff don’t go,
So Heaven help the R.T.O.
A. P. BOWEN, Sgt., R.T.O.
THE MACHINE GUN
Anywhere and everywhere,
It’s me the soldiers love,
Underneath a parapet
Or periscoped above;
Backing up the barrage fire,
And always wanting more;
Chewing up a dozen disks
To blast an army corps;
Crackling, spitting, demon-like,
Heat-riven through and through,
Fussy, mussy Lewis gun,
Three heroes for a crew!
Advocate of peace am I,
Which same some won’t admit;
Say! I’d like to see that crowd
Come out and do their bit!
Out to where the boys have died,
That peace on earth might come
Sooner than if He above
Had based His hopes on some!
Whimper not, my friends, when men
Have holy work to do,
Tuning up the Vickers gun,
Three heroes for a crew!
Anywhere and everywhere,
From Loos to Ispahan,
Yankee, Poilu, Tommy’s
Been with me to a man;
Pacifist and fighter, too,
I care not where I go,
Crashing, smashing at the lines
That shield the common foe.
Anywhere and everywhere,
Heat-riven through and through,
Fussy, mussy Browning gun,
Three heroes for a crew!
ALBERT JAY COOK, Corp., M.G. Bn.
OUR DEAD
They lie entombed in serried ranks,
A cross atop each lonely grave.
They rest beneath the peaceful banks
They fought so valiantly to save.
This ground made sacred by their tears,
Our starry flag above each head,
For upwards of a thousand years
A shrine shall be unto our dead.
EVERYBODY’S FRIEND
At first we wuz gay as the ship slipped away
From the land where we’d lived all our lives,
An’ we laughed an’ we sang till the whole harbor rang,
An’ threw kisses to mothers and wives.
But after a while as we stood there in file,
An’ the people wuz only a blur,
Things sort o’ calmed down, an’ we jus’ watched the town
Till we couldn’t see nothin’ o’ her.
Say, then we felt blue, an’ you couldn’t tell who
Felt the worst, fer we all darn near cried;
’Twas jus’ like when night is a-comin’ in sight,
An’ you’ve been where somebody’s died.
First thing we knew came a roar, an’ it grew
Till I’ll bet that the Kaiser could hear;
Fer there off one side, lookin’ at us with pride,
Wuz Liberty! Who wouldn’t cheer?
I s’pose she’s still there with the crown in her hair
An’ her lamp givin’ light to the land;
That may all be so, but there’s lots of us know
How we still feel the touch of her hand.
Sometimes in the night when there ain’t any fight,
An’ we’re standin’ on guard all alone,
Like an angel o’ grace she comes near, an’ her face
Cheers our hearts which wuz colder’n a stone.
In the thick of a scrap, with sweat oozin’ like sap,
She puts her cool hand into ours;
An’ like that everywhere, we c’n feel that she’s there,
With her help, and her smile like the flowers.
FREDERICK W. KURTH, Sgt., M.T.D.
THE STEVEDORE
We don’t pack no gat or rifle, we don’t juggle pick or spade,
Nor go stunnin’ peevish Germans in no dashin’ midnight raid;
But we hit the warehouse early and we quit the warehouse late,
And there ain’t no G.O. limits on the speed we truck the freight.
We don’t hike along the roadway in them iron derby hats
While the shrapnel punctuates the breeze and gas floats o’er the
flats;
We just dodge the fallin’ cases and we slap them back on high,
For it’s just a pile o’ pilin’ in the Service of Supply.
No, we ain’t no snappy soldiers, and our daily round of drills
Includes a lot of movements minus military thrills;
But we drill them bloomin’ box cars, double timin’ on the bends,
And we slam them full of boxes till they’re bulgin’ at the ends.
We ain’t sniped no Fritzie snipers, and we ain’t wrecked no tanks,
And we don’t go dashin’ forward with the ever-thinnin’ ranks;
But some nights we gets an order for a shipment on the fly,
Then we plug right through till mornin’, in the Service of Supply.
We ain’t got no dugout movies, nor a Charlie Chaplin laugh;
We ain’t got no handsome colonel with his neat and nifty staff,
Nor a brave and fearless captain with a flashing sword and gun
To yell, “Now up and at ’em, boys! We’ve got ’em on the run!”
We ain’t soaring round in biplanes, punching holes in Boche balloons,
Nor corralling frightened Fritzies by battalions and platoons,
But when they yell, “Rush order!” then we get around right spry,
For the boys are up there waitin’—on the Service of Supply.
C. C. SHANFELTER, Sgt., S.C.
BLACK AND WHITE
I was like the child
Who believed there was
A Santa Claus
But had never seen him,
Only
I have seen another world
And know it exists.
I used to think that
There was only one world—
A world of
Mud
And bursting shells
Which killed and wounded
Me and my pals;
A world of
Hizzing bullets
And mustard gas,
And cold, sleepless nights,
And no food for days,
And Huns who cried
“Kamerad!”
(When their ammunition was gone),
And filthy clothes,
And cooties
And cooties
And cooties.
But now I know that there is also
A world of—
Clean sheets and pajamas,
And good food
And plenty of it,
And kind, gentle women
In white
Who give you cocoa and soup,
And doctors who give you more than
“C.C.” pills,
And peaceful days
Without a single shell,
And peaceful nights,
And officers who wear white collars
And have only heard of cooties,
And visitors who sit on your bed
And murmur “How thrilling,”
And street cars and taxis,
And buildings without
A single shell hole in them,
And everything
I only dreamed of before.
Gosh! but it’s a wonderful war—
BACK HERE.
HARV.
THE OL’ CAMPAIGN HAT
No more against a battle sky with swooping pilots lined,
No more where charging heroes die my peakéd top you’ll find.
In training camps and peaceful climes the war is not for me,
Yet still I dream of other times and what I used to be.
The Mauser crackles once again—the smoky Springfield roar
Avenges those who manned the _Maine_ upon the Cuban shore.
Fedora-style I did my bit in jungle sun and dirt,
And now I’ve got a mortal hit, just like the old blue shirt!
I hear the tingling ’Frisco cheers, the squat “Kilpatrick” sway,
As boldly swung we from the piers, Manila months away.
Luzon, Panay—I saw them all, Pekin was not the least—
O I have felt the siren call that sweeps from out the East.
Below the line of Capricorn in divers times and places
I’ve heard retreating yowls of scorn from herds of Spiggot races.
The Rio Grande and Vera Cruz—I knew them like a map,
And now it looks as though I lose—the jackpot to a cap!
No more against a blazing sky where hard-pressed Fokkers flee,
No more where charging heroes die, my peakéd top you’ll see.
The trade mark of the Johnnie’s gone, but, just between us two,
I’ll bet you I come back again when this damn war is through!
WHEN THE GENERAL CAME TO TOWN
We wuz workin’ in th’ offus—
That is, all exceptin’ me—
An’ I wuz jest a-settin’,
As a orderly should be,
When a feller wearin’ eagles
Perchin’ on his shoulder straps,
Poked his head right in th’ winder,
An’ he talks right out an’ snaps,
“Who’s th’ officer commandin’
Over this detachment here?”
An’ th’ looey he salutes him,
While us rest wuz feelin’ queer.
“I am, sir,” th’ looey tells him,
Wonderin’ what th’ row’s about.
“Pershing’s comin’ in five minits,”
Says th’ kernel. “All troops out.”
Gosh, how we did hurry,
For we looked a doggone fright—
Some had hats a-missin’,
An’ they warn’t a coat in sight.
First we cleaned up in th’ offus,
Then we swept up in th’ street,
An’ it wasn’t many seconds
Till th’ place wuz hard t’ beat.
Next we hunted up our clothin’,
Borried some an’ swiped some more,
Then th’ looey got us standin’
In a line afore th’ door.
Mighty soon around th’ corner
Come two scrumptious lookin’ cars,
An’ they wasn’t any licence
On th’ first one—’cept four stars.
When the car had stopped right sudden,
Then th’ gineral he stepped out,
An’ without much parley-vooin’
He begin t’ look about.
They wuz lots o’ darkey soldiers
What wuz lined up in a row,
An’ he shore looked at ’em careful,
Walkin’ past ’em mighty slow.
An’ th’ Frenchmen come a-flockin’,
An’ they couldn’t understand
Why he warn’t a-wearin’ medals,
An’ gold braid t’ beat th’ band.
Then he made a little lectur,
Givin’ all them Frenchmen thanks,
Since they’d acted mighty kind-like
In a-dealin’ with his Yanks.
All th’ peepul started clappin’
When his talk kum to a close,
An’ a purty little lassie
Offered him a dandy rose.
Shore he tuk it, smilin’ pleasant,
Like a gift he couldn’t miss—
An’ th’ little maid wuz happy
When he paid her with a kiss.
Then he stepped into his auto,
An’ he hurried on his way—
While us guys went back t’ workin’,
Feelin’ we had had SOME day.
VANCE C. CRISS, Corp., Engrs.
SEICHEPREY
A handful came to Seicheprey
When winter woods were bare,
When ice was in the trenches
And snow was in the air.
The foe looked down on Seicheprey
And laughed to see them there.
The months crept by at Seicheprey
The growing handful stayed,
With growling guns at midnight,
At dawn, the lightning raid,
And learned, in Seicheprey trenches,
How war’s red game is played.
September came to Seicheprey;
A slow-wrought host arose
And rolled across the trenches
And whelmed its sneering foes,
And left to shattered Seicheprey
Unending, sweet repose.
J. M. H.
BEFORE A DRIVE
Loud spitting motor truck and wagon trains,
And caissons and guns and Infantry,
All jammed together in the dark
And mud and rain of northern France,
Moving toward the Front.
Night after night it had been thus,
With days of hard, relentless drudgery
Spent over maps of war and battle plans,
With one or two or three, perhaps,
Short hours of sleep in every twenty-four,
Only what chance afforded,
Till I had lost all trace of time.
Day meant but heavy toil,
And night dull tramping onward in the mud,
Buffeted about by caissons and guns and motor trucks;
Life was but mud and rain and weary men.
And then—one evening ere the march began,
I chanced to pause and gaze into the West,
And there was all the beauty of the world
Lying a-top the rain-bejewelled trees
In stripes of crimson, lavender, and blue,
And all the other colors known to man!
Then darkness came, and I was tramping northward once again,
Buffeted about by caissons and guns and motor trucks.
But lo! the road that night was smooth;
My feet were steady and my heart was gay,
For I had looked into the West I love
And there had seen the magic of your smile.
CHARLES LYN FOX, Inf.
PRIVATE JONES, A. E. F.
“Who is the boy and what does he do, and what do the gold stripes
mean?
And why is his mouth so grim and hard while those eyes of his are
a-dream?
Only a private soldier, eh, and he holds his head that high?
Putting on airs a bit, I’d say; nothing about him that’s shy.
“He’s been through hell three times, you say, and turned up with a
grin?
He’s faced the great unknown so much it holds no fear for him?
He’s seen the highest lights of life and deepest shadows, too?
He knows what glory means when mixed with mud, red blood and blue?
“He’s slept in the slush and rain and hummed a tune as the big guns
barked?
He’s eaten a single meal a day, and kept ragtime in his heart?
He’s fallen three times, you say, in the dark, with limp, still things
around,
And he called the nurse ‘kid’ and asked her to help him get back to
that ground?
“No wonder the mouth is grim and set, no wonder the eyes a-dream;
The best and worst in life and death the plain buck private has seen.
Ah, well, I suppose he’d like to quit and get an easier job.
No? Not he? He told you, you say, he wouldn’t trade bunks with God?”
WILLIAM I. ENGLE, Pvt., Inf.
“HOMMES 40, CHEVAUX 8”
Roll, roll, roll, over the rails of France,
See the world and its map unfurled, five centimes in your pants.
What a noble trip, jolt and jog and jar,
Forty we, with Equipment C in one flat-wheeled box-car.
We are packed by hand,
Shoved aboard in ’teens,
Pour a little oil on us
And we would be sardines.
Rations? Oo-la-la! and how we love the man
Who learned how to intern our chow in a cold and clammy can.
Beans and beef and beans, beef and beans and beef,
Willie raw, he will win the war, take in your belt a reef.
Mess kits flown the coop,
Cups gone up the spout;
Use your thumbs for issue forks,
And pass the bull about.
Hit the floor for bunk, six hommes to one homme’s place;
It’s no fair to the bottom layer to kick ’em in the face.
Move the corp’ral’s feet out of my left ear;
Lay off, sarge, you are much too large, I’m not a bedsack, dear.
Lift my head up, please,
From this bag of bread;
Put it on somebody’s chest,
Then I’ll sleep like the dead.
Roll, roll, roll, yammer and snore and fight,
Travelling zoo the whole day through and bedlam all the night.
Four days in the cage, going from hither hence;
Ain’t it great to ride by freight at good old Unc’s expense?
THE BUGLER
(A patient in Base Hospital 48)
“I can’t blow taps no more,”
He says to me.
(They’d kidded him outside the barracks door.)
“I used to do it pretty well before—
Before I played my buddy off. It’s war,
But don’t you see?
“The moon was full and white,
And shinin’ free,
About the way it’s shinin’ there tonight.
We started up, and Buddy got it right—
A piece of shrap; it dropped him out the fight
Alongside me.
“We laid him in the clay;
And it was me
That sounded taps; there was no other way ...
I can’t blow taps no more ... but say!
I tapped a German skull the other day.
And that squares me!”
LIN DAVIES, Pvt.
THE RETURN OF THE REFUGEES
They pick their way o’er the shell-pocked road
As the evening shadows fall,
A man and woman, their eyes a-gleam
With awe at war’s black pall.
The straggling strands of her snowy hair
Are tossed in the wind’s rude breath;
His frail form shakes as the whistling gusts
Sweep o’er the field of death.
With straining eyes, hearts beating fast,
They seek to gaze ahead
To where they left their little home
When from the Hun they fled.
’Neath the heights of a hill o’erlooking the vale,
Half hid in a purple shade,
The dim outline of the town comes to view,
And they hasten down the glade.
At last the town, the street, and home!
But God! Can it be this?—
This pile of stones, this hideous hulk,
This gaping orifice?
The sun has set. The evening star
Sends down its soothing light.
Gone are the tears; their hearts are strong—
“For God, for France, and Right!”
FREDERICK W. KURTH, Sgt., M.T.D.
AS THE TRUCKS GO ROLLIN’ BY
There’s a rumble an’ a jumble an’ a bumpin’ an’ a thud,
As I wakens from my restless sleep here in my bed o’ mud,
’N’ I pull my blankets tighter underneath my shelter fly,
An’ I listen to the thunder o’ the trucks a-rollin’ by.