Anzac Limericks

In December of 1915, in the midst of supervising troop withdrawals from the failed Gallipoli campaign, General W.R. Birdwood, Commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, penned an introduction to the ANZAC Book, a collection of writings, cartoons, and sketches contributed by the ANZAC men who had fought at Gallipoli. The General expressed his opinion that the material in the book “does as much credit to them as the fighting here has done to the Force,” but added that “those who are more critical [of the literary offering] will perhaps remember the circumstances under which the contributions have been prepared, in small dug-outs, with shells and bullets frequently whistling overhead.”  He concluded,

No words of mine could ever convey to readers at their firesides in Australia, New Zealand and the Old Country, one-half of what all their boys have been through, nor is my poor pen capable of telling them of the never-failing courage, determination and cheerfulness of those who have so willingly fought and given their lives for their King and country’s sake.*

As happened often in the First World War, one way in which men coped with the psychological traumas of war was through humour. The Gallipoli soldiers’ 1915/1916 anthology offered two “ANZAC Alphabets” (“N is the Navy bombarding a lair,/ Ignoring the fact that there’s nobody there”) as well as a short story that recounted the tale of a Sergeant Major who faints dead away when he learns his supply officer has been writing poetry.  And in addition to patriotic and nostalgic verse that recalled scenes of home, the book included “Anzac Limericks”:

There’s a certain darned nuisance called “Beachy,”**

Whose shells are exceedingly screechy;

            But we’re keeping the score,

            And we’re after your gore—

So look out, “Beachy Bill,” when we meet ye.

They’ve given us all respirators,

And we’ve bundles of ancient Spectators;***

            But we’d give up the two

            For a good oyster stew,

Or a dixie of chipped pertaters.

            -- C.D. Mc.

More First World War limericks (this time written by a Canadian on the Western Front) can be read in an earlier post on this blog: “Laughing at War.”

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* ANZAC Book, Cassell, 1916, p. x.

** “Beachy Bill” was the nickname given to the Turkish artillery guns overlooking Anzac Cove, concealed batteries that repeatedly shelled Allied positions on the coast.   

*** A weekly British magazine that featured articles on culture, politics, and current events.

A New Zealander's War

Paul Graham Clark and his friend Leslie Averill

Steaming towards war, thinking of home.  Those were the circumstances under which 20-year-old Paul Graham Clark wrote the poem “En Voyage.” Though born in England, Clark had made New Zealand his home, and along with other men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force 34^th Reinforcements, he left Wellington on the 8th February 1918 aboard the troopship Ulimaroa.  As his great nephew and poet Alan Clark writes, “For many of the young kiwi soldiers this was supposed to be the biggest adventure of their lives.”

En Voyage

They’ve swung her out into the harbour now

And she’s rounded the Heads at last,

While the waves of the briny break over her prow

And New Zealand’s a thing of the past.

We’ve said good-bye to the “missis,”

And kissed all the kiddies, too,

With a note to all that will miss us,

And a special one sent up to you.

We’re a speck in the boundless ocean now,

Just a thousand poor souls, all told;

And feel just like—well, just like how

We felt back in the days of old

When they fitted us out in Bill Massey’s boots,

Dished each one out a spoon and a fork,

Then lined us up like a lot of coots

And told us we couldn’t talk.

Oh, what of the squeamish first few days,

When we’d hardly cleared N.Z.!

The transport ship Ulimaroa leaving Wellington Port, NZ 

How the fellows in hundreds of different ways

Went over and hung the head.

They’d stay there forlorn for hours on end

While they gazed at the ship’s black side,

And swore they were counting the rivets up—

But somehow I think that they lied.

They shove us at night into our six by two’s

In a hole that should only hold ten;

But at somebody’s order—I wish I knew whose—

It’s branded “Two hundred men.”

The air’s none too good of a night time,

But when in the morning we wake,

You could take out your knife and slice it

Then scrape it away with a rake.

The tuckers as good as it always was-

— I don’t think! ” did you say?

Well, what if it isn’t, we’ll eat it because—

Well, if we didn’t it wouldn’t pay.

We’ve not come out on a picnic, boys,

Nor yet on a pleasure trip,

So we’ll have to give up a few of our joys

When aboard the King’s troopship.

New Zealand troops after the capture of Bapaume

So we’re swinging away on our journey still

And we’ve nothing to trouble us yet,

Save our thoughts of the land that knows no ill

And the folks that we can’t forget.

For a life on the ocean waves all right,

And there’s a good time yet to come;

But as sure as the moon shines bright to-night

There’s no place now like home.

We’re steaming ahead for England and France

All willing to do our bit;

We’re willing to live or die, just as

Chance in her uncertain way thinks fit.

But back of the mind of each one of us

Is the land we are longing to see,

Where bush fire and beach are a part of us

Way back in our “ain countree.”

            —Paul Graham Clark

Chance’s uncertain ways intervened. Paul Graham Clark never returned to New Zealand and those he loved; he never again saw the bush fires and beaches that meant so much to him.  Attached to the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, he was killed at the Second Battle of Bapaume on August 26, 1918. 

Paul Graham Clark, Achiet-le-Grand Cmml Cty Ext.