M. or so;
This was the day (if I exclude
A year of painful servitude
Under the Ministry of Food)
I struck my final blow.
Ah, what a night! The cannon roared;
There was no food to spare;
And first it froze and then it poured;
Were we dismayed? We were.
Three hundred yards we went or more,
And, when we reached, through seas of gore,
The village we were fighting for,
The Germans were not there.
But miles behind a 9.2
Blew up a ration dump;
Far, far and wide the tinned food flew
From that tremendous crump:
And one immense and sharp-toothed tin
Came whistling down, to my chagrin,
And caught me smartly on the shin--
By Jove, it made me jump.
A hideous wound. The blood that flowed!
It was a job to dress;
I hobbled bravely down the road
And reached a C.C.S.;
Nor was I so obsessed with gloom
At leaving thus the field of doom
As one might easily assume
From stories in the Press.
Though other soldiers as they fell--
Or so the papers say--
Cried, "GEORGE for England! Give 'em hell!"
(It was ST. GEORGE'S Day),
Inspiring as a Saint can be,
I should not readily agree
That anyone detected me
Behaving in that way.
Such is the tale. And, year by year,
I shall no doubt relate
For your fatigued but filial ear
The history of this date;
Yet, though I do not now enhance
The crude events of that advance,
There is a wild fantastic chance
That they will grow more great.
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