The Worst Character in the village (who has repeatedly been pressed by the inhabitants to enlist). "I dunna believe there ain't no war. I believe it's just a plot to get me out of the village."
Light and gay is the leathorn bomb,
We pay our sixpences down at the turnstiles,
And that is our centre, name of Tom;
Wild thunder rolls
When he scores his goals,
And up in the air go Alf and Ern's tiles;
But what is this rumour of war? Whence cometh it from?"
Watching the ball from seats above.
"Belgium ruined? A thousand pities!
Bother the Kaiser's mailéd glove!"
But it left no stings
When they heard these things,
Though they wept as the brown bird weeps for Itys
On the day that the Wanderers whacked them two to love.
"English mariners meet the Dutch,
Tars interned, with the neutrals vieing,
Beaten at Gröningen." Wild hands clutch
At the evening sheets
And the swift pulse beats;
Is the fame of Hawke and Frobisher dying?
The heart of the town is stirred by the Nelson touch.
The smoke-stained cheeks, and there comes a scream,
"If our English lads in a far-off prison
Are matched one day with a German team
And the Germans win,
They will say in Berlin
That a brighter than all our stars has risen;
Will even the Bottlesham Rovers stand supreme?
Who on that day will bear the brunt,
With twinkling feet like a tip-toe dancer
Dribbling about while the half-backs grunt?
There is only one
Who can vanquish the IIun!"
And Bottlesham town with a cry made answer,
"There is only one; we must send our Tom to the front."
Evoe.
While much has been written of the songs that inspire our own brave troops on the march, little is heard of those affected by our Allies.
Happily Mr. Punch's Special Eye-witness with General Headquarters in the Eastern Area has been enabled to send us the words of a song which, set to an old Slav air, is rendered with immense élan by the gallant Russians as they go into battle. It is as follows:—
It's a hard nut to crack,
But it's not so hard to crack, oh!
When once you've got the knack.
Good-bye, Przemysl;
Farewell, Lomborg (Lwow);
It's a hard, hard nut to crack is Cracow,
But we'll soon crack it now.
By the more cultured Russian regiments, i.e., those recruited in the neighbourhood of the German frontier, the last line is rendered:—
to rhyme with Lvoff—the correct pronunciation Lwow, according to a contemporary.
