Kitabı oku: «The Young Guard», sayfa 2

RUDDDY YOUNG GINGER
(1915)

 
RUDDY young Ginger was somewhere in camp,
War broke it up in a day,
Packing cadets of the steadier stamp
Home with the smallest delay.
Ginger braves town in his O.T.C. rags —
Beards a Staff Marquis – the limb!
Saying, "Your son, Sir, is one of my fags,"
Gets a Commission through him.
Then to his tailor's for khaki complet;
Then to Pall Mall for a sword;
Lastly, a wire to his people to say,
"Left school – joined the Line – are you
bored?"
And it was a bit cool
(A term's fees in the pool
By a rule of the school).
There were those who said "Fool!"
Of young Ginger.
Ruddy young Ginger! Who gave him that name?
Tommies who had his own nerve!
"Into 'im, Ginger!" was heard in a game
With a neighbouring Special Reserve.
Blushing and grinning and looking fifteen,
Ginger, with howitzer punt,
Bags his man's wind as succinctly and clean
As he hopes to bag Huns at the front.
Death on recruits who fall out by the way,
Sentries who yawn at their post,
Yet he sang such a song at the Y.M.C.A.
That the C.O. turned green as a ghost!
Less the song than the stance,
And the dissolute dance,
Drew a glance so askance
That… they packed him to France,
Little Ginger.
Next month, to the haunts of fine Ladies and
Lords
I ventured, in Grosvenor Square:
The stateliest chambers were hospital wards —
And ruddy young Ginger was there.
In spite of his hurts he looked never so red,
Nor ever less shy or sedate,
Though his hair had been cropped (by machine-
gun, he said)
And bandages turbaned his pate.
He was mostly in holes – but his cheek was
intact!
I could not but notice, with joy,
The loveliest Sisters had most to transact
With ruddy young Ginger – some boy!
Slaying Huns by the tons,
With a smile like a nun's —
Oh! of all the brave ones,
All the sons of our guns —
Give me Ginger!
 

THE BALLAD OF ENSIGN JOY

 
I T is the story of
Ensign Joy
And the obsolete
rank withal
That I love for each gentle English
boy
Who jumped to his country's
call.
By their fire and fun, and the
deeds they've done,
I would gazette them Second to
none
Who faces a gun in Gaul!)
 
 
IT is also the story of Ermyntrude
A less appropriate name
For the dearest prig and the
prettiest prude!
But under it, all the same,
The usual consanguineous squad
Had made her an honest child
of God —
And left her to play the game.
 
 
IT was just when the grind of
the Special Reserves,
Employed upon Coast Defence,
Was getting on every Ensign's
nerves —
Sick-keen to be drafted
hence —
That they met and played tennis
and danced and sang,
The lad with the laugh and the
schoolboy slang,
The girl with the eyes intense.
 
 
 YET it wasn't for him that she
languished and sighed,
But for all of our dear deemed
youth;
And it wasn't for her, but her
sex, that he cried,
If he could but have probed
the truth !
Did she? She would none of his
hot young heart;
As khaki escort he's tall and
smart,
As lover a shade uncouth.
 
 
HE went with his draft. She
returned to her craft.
He wrote in his merry vein:
She read him aloud, and the
Studio laughed!
Ermyntrude bore the strain.
He was full of gay bloodshed and
Old Man Fritz:
His flippancy sent her friends
into fits.
Ermyntrude frowned with
pain.
 
 
HIS tales of the Sergeant who
swore so hard
Left Ermyntrude cold and
prim;
The tactless truth of the picture
jarred,
And some of his jokes were
grim.
Yet, let him but skate upon
tender ice,
And he had to write to her twice
or thrice
Before she would answer him.
 
 
YET once she sent him a
fairy's box,
And her pocket felt the brunt
Of tinned contraptions and
books and socks —
Which he hailed as "a sporting
stunt!"
She slaved at his muffler none
the less,
And still took pleasure in mur-
muring, "Yes!
For a friend of mine at the
Front.")
 
 
ONE fine morning his name
appears —
Looking so pretty in print!
"Wounded!" she warbles in
tragedy tears —
And pictures the reddening
lint,
The drawn damp face and the
draggled hair.
But she found him blooming in
Grosvenor Square,
With a punctured shin in a
splint.
 
 
IT wasn't a haunt of Ermyn-
trude's,
That grandiose urban pile;
Like starlight in arctic altitudes
Was the stately Sister's smile.
It was just the reverse with
Ensign Joy —
In his golden greeting no least
alloy —
In his shining eyes no guile!
 
 
HE showed her the bullet that
did the trick —
He showed her the trick,
x-ray'd;
He showed her a table timed to
a tick,
And a map that an airman
made.
He spoke of a shell that caused grievous loss —
But he never mentioned a certain
cross
For his part in the escapade!
 
 
SHE saw it herself in a list next
day,
And it brought her back to his
bed,
With a number of beautiful
things to say,
Which were mostly over his
head.
Turned pink as his own pyjamas'
stripe,
To her mind he ceased to em-
body a type —
Sank into her heart instead.
 
 
 I WONDER that all of you
didn't retire!"
"My blighters were not that
kind."
"But it says you 'advanced un-
der murderous fire,
Machine-gun and shell com-
bined – '"
"Oh, that's the regular War
Office wheeze!"
"'Advanced' – with that leg! —
'on his hands and knees'!"
"I couldn't leave it behind."
 
 
HE was soon trick-driving an
invalid chair,
and dancing about on a crutch;
The haute noblesse of Grosvenor
Square
Felt bound to oblige as such;
They sent him for many a motor-
whirl —
With the wistful, willowy wisp of
a girl
Who never again lost touch.
 
 
THEIR people were most of
them dead and gone.
They had only themselves to
His pay was enough to marry
upon,
As every Ensign sees.
They would muddle along (as
in fact they did)
With vast supplies of the tertium
quid
You bracket with bread-and-
cheese.
please.
 
 
THEY gave him some leave
after Grosvenor Square —
And bang went a month on
banns;
For Ermyntrude had a natural
flair
For the least unusual plans.
Her heaviest uncle came down
well,
And entertained, at a fair hotel,
The dregs of the coupled clans.
 
 
A CERTAIN number of
cheques accrued
To keep the wolf from the
door:
The economical Ermyntrude
Had charge of the dwindling
store,
When a Board reported her
bridegroom fit
As – some expression she didn't
permit.
And he left for the Front once
more.
 
 
HIS crowd had been climbing
the jaws of hell:
He found them in death's dog-
teeth,
With little to show but a good
deal to tell
In their fissure of smoking
heath.
There were changes – of course
– but the change in him
Was the ribbon that showed on
his tunic trim
And the tumult hidden be-
neath!
 
 
FOR all he had suffered and
seen before
Seemed nought to a husband's
care;
And the Chinese puzzle of mod-
ern war
For subtlety couldn't compare
With the delicate springs of the
complex life