'_The troops continue in excellent spirits._'--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL
DESPATCH.
To appreciate properly, from the Army's point of view, the humour of
this story, it must always be remembered that the regiment concerned is
an English one--entirely and emphatically English, and indeed almost
entirely East End Cockney.
It is true that the British Army on active service has a sense of
humour peculiarly its own, and respectable civilians have been known,
when jests were retailed with the greatest gusto by soldier raconteurs,
to shudder and fail utterly to understand that there could be any
humour in a tale so mixed up with the grim and ghastly business of
killing and being killed.
A biggish battle had died out about a week before in the series of
spasmodic struggles of diminishing fury that have characterised most of
the battles on the Western Front, when the Tower Bridge Foot found
themselves in occupation of a portion of the forward line which was
only separated from the German trench by a distance varying from forty
to one hundred yards. Such close proximity usually results in an
interchange of compliments between the two sides, either by speech, or
by medium of a board with messages written on it--the board being
reserved usually for the strokes of wit most likely to sting, and
therefore best worth conveying to the greatest possible number of the
enemy.
The 'Towers' were hardly installed in their new position when a voice
came from the German parapet, 'Hello, Tower Bridge Foot! Pleased to
meet you again.'
The Englishmen were too accustomed to it to be surprised by this
uncannily prompt recognition by the enemy of a newly relieving regiment
of which they had not seen so much as a cap top.
'Hullo, Boshy,' retorted one of the Towers. 'You're makin' a mistake
this time. We ain't the Tower Bridges. We're the Kamchatka
'Ighlanders.'
'An' you're a liar if you says you're pleased to meet us again,' put in
another. 'If you've met us afore I lay you was too dash sorry for it
to want to meet us again.'
'Oh, we know who you are all right,' replied the voice. 'And we know
you've just relieved the Fifth Blankshires; and what's more, we know
who's going to relieve you, and when.'
''E knows a bloomin' heap,' said a Tower Bridge private disgustedly;
'an' wot's more, I believe 'e does know it.' Then, raising his voice,
he asked, 'Do you know when we're comin' to take some more of them
trenches o' yours?'
This was felt by the listening Towers to be a master-stroke,
remembering that the British had taken and held several trenches a week
before, but the reply rather took the wind out of their sails.
'You can't take any more,' said the voice. 'You haven't shells enough
for another attack. You had to stop the last one because your guns
were running short.'
'Any'ow,' replied an English corporal who had been handing round half a
dozen grenades, 'we ain't anyways short o' bombs. 'Ave a few to be
goin' on with,' and he and his party let fly. They listened with
satisfaction to the bursts, and through their trench periscopes watched
the smoke and dust clouds billowing from the trench opposite.
'An' this,' remarked a Tower private, 'is about our cue to exit, the
stage bein' required for a scene-shift by some Bosh bombs,' and he
disappeared, crawling into a dug-out. During the next ten minutes a
couple of dozen bombs came over and burst in and about the British
trench and scored three casualties, 'slightly wounded.'
'Hi there! Where's that Soho barber's assistant that thinks 'e can
talk Henglish?' demanded the Towers' spokesman cheerfully.
That annoyed the English-speaking German, as of course incidentally it
was meant to do.
'I'm here, Private Petticoat Lane,' retorted the voice, 'and if I
couldn't speak better English than you I'd be shaming Soho.'
'You're doing that anyway, you bloomin' renegade dog-stealer,' called
back the private. 'Wy didn't you pay your landlady in Lunnon for the
lodgin's you owed when you run away?'
'Schweinhund!' said the voice angrily, and a bullet slapped into the
parapet in front of the taunting private.
'Corp'ril,' said that artist in invective softly, 'if you'll go down
the trench a bit or up top o' that old barn behind I'll get this
bloomin' Soho waiter mad enough to keep on shootin' at me, an' you'll
p'raps get a chance to snipe 'im.'
The corporal sought an officer's permission and later a precarious
perch on the broken roof of the barn, while Private Robinson extended
himself in the manufacture of annoying remarks.
'That last 'un was a fair draw, Smithy,' he exulted to a fellow
private. 'I'll bet 'e shot the moon, did a bolt for it, when 'e
mobilised.'
'Like enough,' agreed Smithy. 'Go on, ol' man. Give 'im some more
jaw.'
'I s'pose you left without payin' your washin' bill either, didn't you,
sower-krowt,' demanded Private Robinson. There was no reply from the
opposition.
'I expeck you ler' a lot o' little unpaid bills, didn't you?--if you
was able to find anyone to give you tick.'
'I'll pay them--when we take London,' said the voice.
'That don't give your pore ol' landlady much 'ope,' said Robinson.
'Take Lunnon! Blimy, you're more like to take root in them trenches o'
yours--unless we comes over again an' chases you out.'
Again there was no reply. Private Robinson shook his head. ''E's as
'ard to draw as the pay that's owin' to me,' he said. 'You 'ave a go,
Smithy.'
Smithy, a believer in the retort direct and no trafficker in the finer
shades of sarcasm, cleared his throat and lifted up his voice. ''Ere,
why don't you speak when you're spoke to, you lop-eared lager-beer
barrel, you. Take your fice out o' that 'orse-flesh cat's-meat
sossidge an' speak up, you baby-butcherin' hen-roost robber.'
'That ain't no good, Smithy,' Private Robinson pointed out. 'Y'see,
callin' 'im 'ard names only makes 'im think 'e's got you angry
like--that 'e's drawed you.'
(Another voice called something in German.)
'Just tell them other monkeys to stop their chatter, Soho,' he called
out, 'an' get back in their cage. If they want to talk to gen'l'men
they must talk English.'
'I like your d--d impertinence,' said the voice scornfully. 'We'll
make you learn German, though, when we've taken England.'
'Oh, it's Englan' you're takin' now,' said Private Robinson. 'But all
you'll ever take of Englan' will be same as you took before--a tuppenny
tip if you serves the soup up nice, or a penny tip if you gives an
Englishman a proper clean shave.'
The rifle opposite banged again and the bullet slapped into the top of
the parapet. 'That drawed 'im again,' chuckled Private Robinson, 'but
I wonder why the corp'ril didn't get a whack at 'im.'
He pulled away a small sandbag that blocked a loophole, and, holding
his rifle by the butt at arm-length, poked the muzzle out slowly. A
moment later two reports rang out--one from in front and one behind.
'I got 'im,' said the corporal three minutes later. 'One bloke was
looking with a periscope and I saw a little cap an' one eye come over
the parapet. By the way 'is 'ands jerked up an' 'is 'ead jerked back
when I fired, I fancy 'e copped it right enough.'
Private Robinson got to work with a piece of chalk on a board and
hoisted over the parapet a notice, 'R.I.P. 1 Boshe, late lamented Soho
garçon.'
'Pity I dunno the German for "late lamented," but they've always plenty
that knows English enough to unnerstand,' he commented.
He spent the next ten minutes ragging the Germans, directing his most
brilliant efforts of sarcasm against made-in-Germany English-speakers
generally and Soho waiters in particular; and he took the fact there
was no reply from the voice as highly satisfactory evidence that it had
been the 'Soho waiter' who had 'copped it.'
'Exit the waiter--curtain, an' soft music!' remarked a private known as
'Enery Irving throughout the battalion, and whistled a stave of 'We
shall meet, but we shall miss him.'
'Come on, 'Enery, give us 'is dyin' speech,' some one urged, and 'Enery
proceeded to recite an impromptu 'Dyin' Speech of the
Dachshund-stealer,' as he called it, in the most approved fashion of
the East End drama, with all the accompaniments of rolling eyes,
breast-clutchings, and gasping pauses.
'Now then, where's the orchestra?' he demanded when the applause had
subsided, and the orchestra, one mouth-organ strong, promptly struck up
a lilting music-hall ditty. From that he slid into 'My Little Grey
Home,' with a very liberal measure of time to the long-drawn notes
especially. The song was caught up and ran down the trench in full
chorus. When it finished the orchestra was just on the point of
starting another tune, when 'Enery held up his hand.
'"'E goes on Sunday to the church, an' sits among the choir."' he
quoted solemnly and added, 'Voices 'eard, off.'
Two or three men were singing in the German trench, and as they sang
the rest joined in and 'Deutschland über Alles' rolled forth in full
strength and harmony.
'Bray-vo! An' not arf bad neither,' said Private Robinson approvingly.
'Though I dunno wot it's all abart. Now s'pose we gives 'em another.'
They did, and the Germans responded with 'The Watch on the Rhine.'
This time Private Robinson and the rest of the Towers recognised the
song and capped it in great glee with 'Winding up the Watch on the
Rhine,' a parody which does not go out of its way to spare German
feelings.
'An' 'ow d'you like that, ol' sossidge scoffers?' demanded Private
Robinson loudly.
'You vait,' bellowed a guttural voice. 'Us vind you op--quick!'
'Vind op--squeak, an' squeakin',' retorted Private Robinson.
The German reply was drowned in a burst of new song which ran like
wild-fire the length of the German trench. A note of fierce passion
rang in the voices, and the Towers sat listening in silence.
'Dunno wot it is,' said one. 'But it sounds like they was sayin'
something nasty, an' meanin' it all.'
But one word, shouted fiercely and lustily, caught Private Robinson's
ear.
''Ark!' he said in eager anticipation. 'I do believe it's--s-sh!
There!' triumphantly, as again the word rang out--the one word at the
end of the verse . . . '_England_.'
'It's _it_. It's the "'Ymn of 'Ate"!'
The word flew down the British trench--'It's the 'Ymn! They're singin'
the "'Ymn of 'Ate,"' and every man sat drinking the air in eagerly.
This was luck, pure gorgeous luck. Hadn't the Towers, like many
another regiment, heard about the famous 'Hymn of Hate,' and read it in
the papers, and had it declaimed with a fine frenzy by Private 'Enery
Irving? Hadn't they, like plenty other regiments, longed to hear the
tune, but longed in vain, never having found one who knew it? And here
it was being sung to them in full chorus by the Germans themselves.
Oh, this _was_ luck.
The mouth-organist was sitting with his mouth open and his head turned
to listen, as if afraid to miss a single note.
''Ave you got it, Snapper?' whispered Private Robinson anxiously at the
end. 'Will you be able to remember it?'
Snapper, with his eyes fixed on vacancy, began to play the air over
softly, when from further down the trench came a murmur of applause,
that rose to a storm of hand-clappings and shouts of 'Bravo!' and
'Encore--'core--'core!'
The mouth-organist played on unheedingly and Private Robinson sat
following him with attentive ear.
'I'm not sure of that bit just there,' said the player, and tried it
over with slight variations. 'P'raps I'll remember it better after a
day or two. I'm like that wi' some toons.'
'We might kid 'em to sing it again,' said Robinson hopefully, as
another loud cry of 'Encore!' rang from the trench.
'Was you know vat we haf sing?' asked a German voice in tones of some
wonderment.
'It's a great song, Dutchie,' replied Private Robinson. 'Fine
song--goot--bong! Sing it again to us.'
'You haf not understand,' said the German angrily, and then suddenly
from a little further along the German trench a clear tenor rose,
singing the Hymn in English. The Towers subsided into rapt silence,
hugging themselves over their stupendous luck. When the singer came to
the end of the verse he paused an instant, and a roar leaped from the
German trench . . . 'England!' It died away and the singer took up the
solo. Quicker and quicker he sang, the song swirling upward in a
rising note of passion. It checked and hung an instant on the last
line, as a curling wave hangs poised; and even as the falling wave
breaks thundering and rushing, so the song broke in a crash of sweeping
sound along the line of the German trench on that one word--'England!'
Before the last sound of it had passed, the singer had plunged into the
next verse, his voice soaring and shaking with an intensity of feeling.
The whole effect was inspiring, wonderful, dramatic. One felt that it
was emblematic, the heart and soul of the German people poured out in
music and words. And the scorn, the bitter anger, hatred, and malice
that vibrated again in that chorused last word might well have brought
fear and trembling to the heart of an enemy. But the enemy immediately
concerned, to wit His Majesty's Regiment of Tower Bridge Foot, were
most obviously not impressed with fear and trembling. Impressed they
certainly were. Their applause rose in a gale of clappings and cries
and shouts. They were impressed, and Private 'Enery Irving, clapping
his hands sore and stamping his feet in the trench-bottom, voiced the
impression exactly. 'It beats Saturday night in the gallery o' the old
Brit.,' he said enthusiastically. 'That bloke--blimy--'e ought to be
doin' the star part at Drury Lane'; and he wiped his hot hands on his
trousers and fell again to beating them together, palms and fingers
curved cunningly, to obtain a maximum of noise from the effort.
An officer passed hurriedly along the trench. 'If there's any firing,
every man to fire over the parapet and only straight to his own front,'
he said, and almost at the moment there came a loud 'bang' from out in
front, followed quickly by 'bang-bang-bang' in a running series of
reports.
The shouting had cut off instantly on the first bang, some rifles
squibbed off at intervals for a few seconds and increased suddenly to a
sputtering roar. With the exception of one platoon near their centre
the Towers replied rapidly to the fire, the maxims joined in, and a
minute later, with a whoop and a crash the shells from a British
battery passed over the trench and burst along the line of the German
parapet. After that the fire died away gradually, and about ten
minutes later a figure scrambled hastily over the parapet and dropped
into safety, his boots squirting water, his wet shirt-tails flapping
about his bare wet and muddy legs. He was the 'bomb officer' who had
taken advantage of the 'Hymn of Hate' diversion to go crawling up a
little ditch that crossed the neutral ground until he was near enough
to fling into the German trench the bombs he carried, and, as he put it
later in reporting to the O.C., 'give 'em something to hate about.'
And each evening after that, for as long as they were in the trenches,
the men of the Tower Bridge Foot made a particular point of singing the
'Hymn of Hate,' and the wild yell of 'England' that came at the end of
each verse might almost have pleased any enemy of England's instead of
aggravating them intensely, as it invariably did the Germans opposite,
to the extent of many wasted rounds.
'It's been a great do, Snapper,' said Private 'Enery Irving some days
after, as the battalion tramped along the road towards 'reserve
billets.' 'An' I 'aven't enjoyed myself so much for months. Didn't it
rag 'em beautiful, an' won't we fair stagger the 'ouse at the next
sing-sing o' the brigade?'
Snapper chuckled and breathed contentedly into his beloved mouth-organ,
and first 'Enery and then the marching men took up the words:
'Ite of the 'eart, an' 'ite of the 'and,
'Ite by water, an' 'ite by land,
'Oo do we 'ite to beat the band?
(deficient memories, it will be noticed, being compensated by effective
inventions in odd lines).
The answering roar of 'England' startled almost to shying point the
horse of a brigadier trotting up to the tail of the column.
'What on earth are those fellows singing?' he asked one of his officers
while soothing his mount.
'I'm not sure, sir,' said the officer, 'but I believe--by the words of
it--yes, it's the Germans' "Hymn of Hate."'
A French staff officer riding with the brigadier stared in
astonishment, first at the marching men, and then at the brigadier, who
was rocking with laughter in his saddle.
'Where on earth did they get the tune? I've never heard it before,'
said the brigadier, and tried to hum it. The staff officer told him
something of the tale as he had heard it, and the Frenchman's amazement
and the brigadier's laughter grew as the tale was told.
We 'ave one foe, an' one alone--England!
bellowed the Towers, and out of the pause that came so effectively
before the last word of the verse rose a triumphant squeal from the
mouth-organ, and the appealing voice of Private 'Enery Irving--'Naw
then, put a bit of 'ate into it.' But even that artist of the emotions
had to admit his critical sense of the dramatic fully satisfied by the
tone of vociferous wrath and hatred flung into the Towers' answering
roar of '. . . . _England!_'
'What an extraordinary people!' said the French staff officer, eyeing
the brigadier shaking with laughter on his prancing charger. And he
could only heave his shoulders up in an ear-embracing shrug of
non-comprehension when the laughing brigadier tried to explain to him
(as I explained to you in the beginning):
'And the best bit of the whole joke is that this particular regiment is
English to the backbone.'