While the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon speaks eloquently of the pity of war, soldiers also used humor to cope with the trauma and tragedies of the conflict. The ANZAC Book is a collection of poems, stories, jokes, and sketches created by men who fought at Gallipoli in 1915. One of the poems included is a comic ballad in the style of Robert Service and his pre-war poems, such as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew."
To the following poem, I’ll add only two notes: the asterisks and vocabulary notes are included in the original text – and this is a poem best read aloud.
How I Won the V.C.
(The sort of thing we must expect to hear after the war is
ended)
Yes, that’s the red ribbon I’m wearing—
Just
a small strip of scarlet, you see,
But there’s no one can tell how I
prize it
Nor
the glow it occasions to me.
For it speaks of the broad fields of
honour
Which
we wrung from the red jaws of hell—
And my eyes grow bedimmed for the
cobbers*
Who
battled and conquered and fell.
Yes, that’s the V.C. How I won it,
It
isn’t for me to relate.
(We heroes are always so modest,
And
boasting’s a thing that I hate.)
Well—seeing you write for the
papers,
I’ll
make an exception of you;
Don’t mention my name if you write it,
Tho’
every partic’lar is true.
It was during a fight for an outpost—
It
was called the Green Knoll, I believe—
And the Turks on the top dealt out
slaughter:
They’d
a week of defeat to retrieve.
It was five thousand feet to the
summit,
And
almost as steep as a wall;
And they met every charge as we
rushed it
With
bayonet, shrapnel, and ball.
‘Twas defended by nine tiers of
trenches
(That’s
strong for an outpost, you’ll guess),
With twelve 42 centimetres,
Which
kicked up the deuce of a mess.
We’d been fighting five days without
resting,
When
the eighth line of trenches we took;
For ev’ry man there was a hero—
From
me to the company’s cook.
And there was the knoll just before
us—
Some
two hundred paces or more;
With barb-wire and bayonets
bristling,
And
the parapets sloppy with gore.
And the howitzers roared like
perdition
And
vomited fire and death;
Till we saw it was madness to charge
them,
And
halted a moment for breath.
Ah, stranger, imagine the picture,
And
then stand with horror aghast—
We
had fought for a month without sleeping,
And we stood facing failure at last!
We had squandered the best of our
Army,
We
had “stuck” to our ultimate gasp;
And there, in the moment of triumph,
The
prize was to slip from our grasp.
Then suddenly out sprang the Major,
His
face lighted over with bliss—
“Pass the word there for
Lance-Private Wilson;
He’ll find us a way out of this!”
(If there’s one thing I hate, it is
skiting*
When
I hear it I always feel sore,
So you won’t think I boast when I
tell you
He
ought to have done it before!)
And a great cheer arose as I faced
him
And
nodded (I never salute),
And said to him: “I’ll see you thro’,
sir,
And
win you some glory to boot.
The chaps of the 16th
Battalion
Are
not easy snoozers to beat;
I’ve a notion (I says) that will
lick them—
‘Arf
a dollar I line them a treat!
“I don’t want no red-tapey orders,
And
I don’t want no kudos nor pelf;
You get back to your own little
dug-outs,
And
I’ll tackle the knoll by myself!
I’ll lay down my life for my
country,
For
old England, the land of the free;
And you’ll find that the bloke
called Horatius
Was
only a trifle to me!”
Then I shook hands with all the
battalion
(There
were only thirteen of us left),
And they cheered me again till the
foemen
Must
have thought us of senses bereft.
And I gathered my arms and my
rations,
And
girded myself for the fray—
If I live to be ninety or over,
I
will always remember that day!
I had five hundred rounds for my
rifle,
And
of hand bombs I took forty-one;
A machine-gun was slung to my
shoulders,
And
I carried a periscope gun.
As for rations—well, all I took with
me
Was
a tin of Fray Bentos* or two,
And in my breast pocket I planted
A
nice Army biscuit to chew.
Then I waved a farewell to my
cobbers—
I
was much too affected to speak;
There are times when the bravest of
soldiers
Have
feelings that render them weak.
One tear—then I turned to the
trenches,
And
charged like a lion at bay
As I caught the last words of our
Colonel,
Crying:
“Bonzer* …
Gorstrafem … Hooray!”
You talk of charmed lives –I’d a
thousand;
As
I rushed up that hill like a goat
I got thirty-two shots thro’ my
trousers
And
nine shrapnel balls thro’ my coat;
And a Japanese bomb burst beneath me
—For
a moment I gave up all hope,
But it proved the best thing that
could happen,
For it pushed me half-way up the slope.
Then a fifteen-inch shell came
straight at me
—I
hadn’t a moment to shirk—
But it struck on that hard Army
biscuit
And
rebounded—and blew up a Turk!
You doubt it? Well if you want
proof, sir,
The
truth of this tale to endorse,
Here’s the biscuit—that dent in the
middle
Is
where the shell struck it, of course!
Ah yes, ‘twas a terrible moment;
I
was then slightly wounded, ‘tis true—
Just a bayonet stab in the gizzard
And
a crack from a bullet or two.
But I gathered new strength for the
conflict,
And,
just as the darkness came down,
I was under their parapets, resting,
And
I knew I had beaten them brown!
For this was the scheme I had worked
on,
‘Twas
a little bit mean, you may say—
But I knew that the Turks were
half-famished,
And
fought on one biscuit a day;
And the tins of Fray Bentos I
carried,
I
chucked in the trench then and there;
And I heard the poor beggars pounce
on it,
And
I knew they were caught in the snare!
*
* * *
* *
The morning broke, smiling and
peaceful—
Ah,
shame, that we soldiers must fight—
‘Twas a piteous scene met my vision
With
the first rosy quivers of light.
When I peeped in the trench, not a
Turk, sir,
Was
left of that legion accurst—
For they’d whacked the Fray Bentos
among them,
And each man had perished from thirst.
That’s the yarn. If you know the 16th, sir,
You’ll
know how our Colonel can smile.
He said to me: “Corporal Wilson,
You’ve
dished up the beggars in style.”
Promotion! Some say I deserve it,
But
that’s really nothing to me;
I don’t want no honour or glory,
But—that’s
how I won the V.C.
—“Crosscut,”
16th Battalion, A.I.F.
--------------------------------------------
*Cobber is
Australian for a tried and trusted friend.
*Skiting—Australian
for “swanking” in speech. “Skite” –
blatherskite.
*Fray Bentos is
a brand of tinned meat.
*Bonzer—Australian for “excellent.”
