Writ in Barracks

We met without appointment on an 'ill,
I comed upon the beggar without warnin';
Layin' down be'ind a boulder,
With 'is rifle to 'is shoulder,
He sent along wot's Dutch for a 'Good-mornin'.'
'E missed me with a fair amount of skill,
An' 'fore 'e'd time to mount, an' get from danger,
I was takin' of my rest,
By a sittin' on 'is chest,
An' a sayin' to the welcome little stranger: —

'My pal, the Boer!
You're a prisoner of war'
('E tried to break my jaw, but that's a trifle);
'You can't escape me, can yer?
In the name of Rule Britannia,
I commandeer your 'orse an' Mauser rifle!'

You wouldn't call 'is manners over bright,
An' you wouldn't term 'is disposition sunny,
An' 'e 'ad a silly notion
That the cause of the commotion
Was Chamberlain a-fightin' for 'is money;
An' 'e fancied that the British flag was white —
'Twas a silly fancy – still we must excuse it,
When the Lancers came along
'E felt a trifle bong!
'E soon found out the proper way to use it!

My pal, the Boer,
Ain't used to proper war,
But tho' 'e scorns the flag an' does the grandy,
The 'igh an' mighty scorner,
When we get 'im in a corner,
'E FINDS A FLAG OF TRUCE IS MIGHTY 'ANDY!

SONG OF THE FIRST TRAIN THROUGH

Line Clear to Witteputs! I wind around the guarded hill,
And thunder o'er the lean long bridge that spans the sombre stream;
No uptorn rail to devastate, no culvert gap to fill,
And where the outpost feared to ride, I gather up my steam.

(I passed a little mound of earth that bore the cross's sign, —
A Colonel, and a dozen men, who fell to clear the line.)

Line Clear to Belmont: and I feel the ballast shaking down:
My flanges bite the new-laid rail and prove the new-thrust pin.
On either side the purple ridge, the veldt land sickly brown,
The 'distant off' says 'Welcome,' and the 'Home' says 'Come ye in.'

(Two thousand guardsmen rushed the Kop – a score are buried here,
And here are laid some Fusiliers – they fell to give Line Clear.)

Line Clear to Graspan: so I run adown the gentle grade,
Nor notice in my joyful haste the kopje stubble grown,
And wildly bouldered foot to crest where fell a half brigade,
What time the bristling mountain-side with segment shell was sown.

(The mess-deck and the ward-room thinned to give the line pratique
Line Clear from Graspan – so, half-mast the Ensign at the Peak.)

Line Clear: along the new-spliced wires that droop from pole to pole,
By Enslin, where the helio glared fitfully and fleet,
The word is passed across the plain to where the rivers roll, —
To where, tree-fringed in eddying swirls, the Modder meets the Riet.

(In heat and thirst and weariness a hundred dying lay,
A hundred bloody forms grew stiff to give me Right Away.)

Line Clear: I face the grim gaunt range that stretches east and west
('Twas by its base, near Magers farm, that Wauchope's men went down):
I skirt the ridge that hid the guns, and gleefully I breast
The easy rise that brings in view the long-beleaguered town.

(Line Clear: o'er blood, and sweat, and pain, and sorrow's
road I ran,
And every sleeper was a wound, and every rail a man.)

THE NAVAL BRIGADE

When you're pickin' your men for a fight,
When choosin' the corps that'll serve,
It's only quite proper an' right
To fix upon muscle an' nerve,
An' so, to your heavy Dragoons —
Your Granny-dear Guards an' their band —
To your Sappers with bridgin' pontoons,
You can buckle the Lower Deck Hand!

(The Lower Deck Hand
Doesn't want any band;
He's grit, an he's sand
Is the Lower Deck Hand.)

His march is a go-as-you-please;
He most keeps step with hisself!
For his boots ain't conducive to ease,
Bein' mostly kept packed on a shelf!
Tho' he isn't so span or so spic —