Volume 150 — MY DUG-OUT.
Reading edition
(A Memory of Gallipoli)
It was my home, not ringed with roses blowing, Nor set in meadows where cool waters croon; Parched wastes were round it, and no shade was going, Nor breath of violets nor song-birds' tune; Only at times from the adjacent dwelling Came down with Boreas the quaint, compelling Scent of the Tenth Platoon. And there not hermit-like alone I brooded, But ant and lizard and all things that crawl With great grasshoppers by brigades intruded; Therein the tortoise had his homely stall; Green flies and blue slept nightly in their notches, Save when a serpent, in the middle watches, Came and disturbed us all. There, where the sun, the senseless sun, kept pouring, And dust-clouds smothered one about the chest, While secret waters filtered through the flooring (In case the heat should leave one too oppressed), Always I lay in those sad fevered seasons Which Red-Hat humourists, for mystic reasons, Regarded as our "rest." For it was home; and when I was not in it, But in the trenches, it was home indeed; When mad foes fired at twenty rounds a minute (Not, I may say, the regulation speed), For me far more it harboured my Penates; I missed my animals; I missed my gay teas With Alf, the centipede. And I am shocked to think that that same ceiling Shields now some Mussulman of lowly strain; Yet, though he knows me not, I can't help feeling That something of my spirit must remain, And if, in that rich air the man should mellow In mind, in soul, and be a better fellow, I have not lived in vain. And it may be, when worlds have ceased to wrestle, I shall go back across the Midland foam At special rates in some large tourist vessel To my late hollow in the Sultan's loam, And there clasp hands with that uplifted warrior, Compare brief notes and wonder which was sorrier To have to call it home.
How to treat a Wife.
Extract from lecture by N.C.O.:—
"Your rifle is your best friend, take every care of it; treat it as you would your wife, rub it all over with an oily rag every day."
"The court was crowded by Gaelic Leaguers and the proceedings were marked by some disorderly scenes, until the magistrates ordered their continuance."—Dublin Evening Mail.
Then, of course, being in Ireland, they ceased.
A Provincial Paper, reporting a speech upon heroes of the present War, represents the speaker as referring to "Bill Adams in Leigh Hunt's poem." This is the first time within our knowledge that our old friend Abou Ben Adhem has been confounded with that other popular figure, the fictitious hero of Waterloo!
THE NEW FRIGHTFULNESS.
Admiral von Tirpitz. "PIRACY IS DEAD. STILL, I LIKE TO THINK THAT, UNDER ANOTHER NAME, THE GOOD WORK GOES ON."
[Berlin contends that, piracy being extinct, the arming of liners and merchant vessels is no longer legitimate, and that German submarines are therefore entitled to sink them at sight. The New Frightfulness is due to begin to-day.]