And a queer quaint képi at an angle on his head;
And he sang as he was marching, and in the Tuilleries
You could meet him en permission with Margot on his knee.
At the little café tables by the dusty palms in tubs,
In the Garden of the Luxembourg, among the scented shrubs,
On the old Boul. Mich. of student days, you saw his red and blue;
Did you come to love the fantassin, le p'tit piou-piou?
He is out amongst the hedges where the shrapnel smoke is white;
And some of him are singing still and some of him are dead,
And blood and mud and sweat and smoke have stained his blue and red.
He is out amongst the hedges and the ditches in the rain,
But, when the soixante-quinzes are hushed, just hark!—the old refain,
"Si tu veux faire mon bonheur, Marguérite, O Marguérite,"
Ringing clear above the rifles and the trampling of the feet!
With his queer quaint képi at an angle on his head!
So the Seine shall laugh again beneath the sunlight's quick caress;
So the Meudon woods shall echo once again to "La Jeunesse";
And all along the Luxembourg and in the Tuilleries,
We shall meet him en permission with Margot on his knee.
UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.
No. VIII.
(From Richard Dickson, generally known as Cock-eyed Dick, Private in the South Loamshire Light Infantry.)
I suppose I ought to beg your Majesty's humble pardon for using a pencil for this letter, but it's a good pencil, and, anyhow, we don't run to ink in the trenches. I don't want to be disrespectful to your Majesty's Highness. Fact is I'm just a bit fond of you; you're doing our chaps such a world of good, keeping our hearts up in a manner of speaking and making us all so angry. When your regiments come out against us, the word goes round, and it's "Steady, boys; remember we're a contemptible little army: let's show 'em a bit of contemptible shooting at 800 yards," or "Fix your contemptible bayonets and go for 'em;" and I warrant there's many a German chap out of the fighting line for good and all just on account of that nasty word.
There's another word, too, that some of your chaps have slung at us. They say we're a "mercenary" lot, meaning that we took up with soldiering just because we're paid to do it. Well, we are paid a shilling or two now and then, but don't you go and make no mistake; we don't stick it out in the trenches, with Black Marias playing bowls with us, and the machine-guns crackling at us and the snipers picking us off just because of getting a few shillings, which very often we don't get regular. We're in for this job, ah, and we're going to see it through, too, because we think it's the right thing to do and because we wanted to do a turn of fighting. We ain't bloodthirsty, and I'm not going to say we shall be miserable when it's all over, but while it's going on we like it. There's risks everywhere, even with the quietest jobs. I knew a chap once as drove a goat-cart for children at the seaside, and one day when the wind was strong it blew off his hat, and he got to chasing it, and before he knew where he was he'd gone over the cliff. A careful man he was, too, but he hadn't reckoned up that particular chance when he put his savings into a goat and cart. You can't think of everything, even if you happen to be a Kaiser. I've heard, by the way, that you ain't paid so badly for your job of Kaisering; and old Uncle Franky over in Austria, he rakes 'em in, too, but we don't call you a mercenary pair, though what drove you to take up the business is more than I can make out.
I don't want you to go and make no mistake. You've stirred us up a bit with all your talk, but we've no grudge against your soldiers. We don't hate 'em. They're good fighting men, though I'm not saying that we ain't got one of your blokes the other day. He came on with the attack, and when we'd beaten it off, there he was still coming on. He'd dropped his rifle and his helmet was off, and he was groping about with his hands, and he wasn't shouting "Hock! Hock!" but he didn't stop. We didn't loose off at him, there was something funny about him, and in another minute he tumbled in right atop of us and we took him. He told us afterwards he'd lost his spectacles and couldn't see a yard in front of him, and that was the reason for his being so brave. He talked English, too, but in a funny way, slow and particular and like as if he'd got a bit of suet pudding in his month. Well, we soon made him snug and tidy and then we started to pull his leg and fill him up, and he swallowed it all down. We told him something had gone wrong with the beefsteak pie and the jam tartlets and the orange jelly, and he'd have to satisfy himself with his own rations; but to-morrow there'd be a prime cut of mutton and an apple-tart; and he believed all our fairy tales and said he'd write the story of the English army's food if ever he got home alive. He was a learned man too, but his lost spectacles gave him a lot of trouble. The end of it was we made quite a pet of him, and we were quite sorry when we got relieved and took him to the rear and handed him over as a prisoner. There wasn't any hatred about it.
Yours, Cock-Eyed Dick.
Being either Blue Hungarian or Purple Viennese,
And he cut a gorgeous figure in his blue (or purple) suit
As he coaxed enticing noises from (I think it was) the flute.
It was Otto Heinrich Ollendorf, or something of the kind,
But his casual conversation served surprisingly to show
That the accent of Vienna much resembled that of Bow.
He was heard to say his country would inevitably win
(Had it chanced that in my presence such an insult had been said,
As he wasn't able-bodied, I'd have punched the beggar's head).
To keep watch upon our doings as he puffed his instrument,
And we said, "Eject this alien, let him sooth the savage breast
In a beer-house at Vienna or a band at Budapest."
And where British flautists whistle in a wholly British band
He performs as well as ever, and confesses to the town
(With no fear of unemployment) that his proper name is Brown.
