The Troop Went Through by Edward Dyson

This is another excellent poem by Edward Dyson from “Hello Soldier”.

THE TROOP WENT THROUGH

I HEARD this day, as I may no more,
The world's heart throb at my workshop door.
The sun was keen, and the day was still;
The township drowsed in, a haze of heat.
A stir far off on the sleepy hill,
The measured beat of their buoyant feet,
And the lilt and thrum
Of a little drum,
The song they sang in a cadence low,
The piping note of a piccolo.

The township woke, and the doors flew wide;
The women trotted their boys beside.
Across the bridge on a single heel
The soldiers came in a golden glow,
With throb of song and the chink of steel,
The gallant crow of the piccolo.
Good and brown they were,
And their arms swung bare.
Their fine young faces revived in me
A boyhood's vision of chivalry.

The lean, hard regiment tramping down,
Bushies, miners and boys from town.
From 'mid the watchers the road along
One fell in line with the khaki men.
He took the stride, and he caught their song,
And Steve went then, and Meneer, and Ben,
Long Dave McCree,
And the Weavers three,
All whisked away by the "Come! Come! Come!"
The lusty surge of the vaunting drum.

I swore a prayer for each soldier lad.
He was the son that might have had;
The tall, bold boy who was never mine,
All brave with dust that the eyes laughed through,
His shoulders square, and his chin in line,
Was marching too with the gallant few.
Passed the muffled beat
Of their swanking feet,
The swell of drum, the exulting crow,
The wild-bird note of the piccolo.

They dipped away in the listless trees;
A mother wept on her beaded knees
For sons gone out to the long war's end;
But more than mother or man wept I
Who had no son in the world to send.
The hour lagged by, and drifting high
Came the fitful hum
Of the little drum,
And faint, but still with an ardent flow,
The pibroch, call of the piccolo.

British Troops at the Suez Canal.

This article published in the Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, shows the reader the British advanced camps on the eastern side of the Suez Canal.

The canal was attacked by Turkish troops at the battle of Ismalia in February 1915.

READY FOR THE TURKISH ARMY SENT "TO DELIVER EGYPT"! A BRITISH ENTRENCHED CAMP ON THE SUEZ CANAL.

It was stated on December 23 that the "Frankfürter Zeitung" had learned from Constantinople that the Turkish Army sent "to deliver Egypt" began its forward march to the Suez Canal on the 21st. The Canal is securely held along its hundred miles of length. Our illustration shows one of the several British advanced-camps on the eastern bank (the Asiatic or Sinaitic Peninsula side), placed there to prevent a surprise attack. In all cases, our positions are well fortified, and, with the desert in front, present a formidable barrier to the enemy. In support of the entrenched camps, movable pontoon-bridges have been constructed at certain points. These, with the permanent railway along the western bank, will enable reinforcements to be thrown across the waterways speedily.

The Ration Fatigue.

This excellent little article comes from the great book “Bullets & Billets" By Bruce Bairnsfather.

Here he describes the trenches in Belgium and at the undesirable job of being on a ‘Ration Party’.

THAT RATION FATIGUE

They seemed to me long, dark, dismal days, those days spent in the Douve trenches; longer, darker and more dismal than the Plugstreet ones. Night after night I crossed the dreary mud flat, passed the same old wretched farms, and went on with the same old trench routine. We all considered the trenches a pretty rotten outfit; but every one was fully prepared to accept far rottener things than that. There was never the least sign of flagging determination in any man there, and I am sure you could say the same of the whole front.

And, really, some jobs on some nights wanted a lot of beating for undesirability. Take the ration party's job, for instance. Think of the rottenest, wettest, windiest winter's night you can remember, and add to it this bleak, muddy, war-worn plain with its ruined farms and shell-torn lonely road. Then think of men, leaving the trenches at dusk, going back about a mile and a half, and bringing sundry large and heavy boxes up to the trenches, pausing now and again for a rest, and ignoring the intermittent crackling of rifle fire in the darkness, and the sharp "phit" of bullets hitting the mud all around. Think of that as your portion each night and every night. When you have finished this job, the rest you get consists of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night after night, week after week, month after month, this job is done by thousands.

As one sits in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxurious restaurant, just think of some poor devil half-way along those corduroy boards struggling with a crate of biscuits; the ration "dump" behind, the trenches on in front. When he has finished he will step down into the muddy slush of a trench, and take his place with the rest, who, if need be, will go on doing that job for another ten years, without thinking of an alternative. The Germans made a vast mistake when they thought they had gauged the English temperament.

Lowthers Own in Camp at Cooden.

This is one of my favourite articles published in November 1914 in the Eastbourne Gazette.

Under the title “Lowthers Own” in camp at Cooden, it really captures the feeling of the great adventure in 1914. All lads joining up together and no one ‘missing out’.

The chap putting his head out of the tent with the caption “Sorry I joined? Don’t think” is priceless.

(Click on image to enlarge)