There came a day we took it to be washed, I and my batman, after due debate. A little cottage stood hard by the road Whose one small window said, in manuscript, "Wasching for soldiers and for officers," And there we left my shirt with anxious fears And fond injunctions to the Belgian dame. So it was washed. I marked it as I passed Waving svelte arms beneath the kindly sun As if it semaphored to its own shade That answered from the grass. I saw it fill And plunge against its bonds--methought it yearned To join its tameless kin, the airy clouds. And as I saw it so, I sang aloud, "To-morrow I shall wear thee! Haste, O Time!" Fond, futile dream! That very afternoon, Her washing taken in and folded up (My shirt, my shirt I mourn for, with the rest), The frugal creature locked and left her cot To cut a cabbage from a neighbour's field. Then, without warning, from the empurpled sky, Swift with grim dreadful purpose, swooped a shell (Perishing Percy was the name he bore Amongst, the irreverent soldiery), ah me! And where the cottage stood there gaped a gulf; The jewel and the casket vanished both. * * * * * Were there no other humble homes but that For the vile Hun to fire at? Did some spy, In bitter jealousy, betray my shirt? What boots it to lament? The shirt is gone. It was not meant for such an one as I, A plain rough gunner with one only pip. No doubt 'twas destined for some lofty soul Who in a deck-chair lolls, and marks the map And says, "Push here," while I and all my kind Scrabble and slaughter in the appointed slough. But I, presumptuous, wore it, till the gods Called for my laundry with a thunderbolt. * * * * * [Illustration: HOW TO LOSE THE WAR AT HOME.] * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. _Monday, October 22nd._--The fact that a couple of German raiders contrived to slip through the North Sea patrol the other night was made the excuse for an attack upon the Admiralty. Sir Eric Geddes came down specially to assure the House that if it viewed things "in the right perspective" it would realise that such isolated incidents were unavoidable. Members generally were convinced, I think, by the sight of the First Lord's bulldog jaw, even more than by his words, that the Navy would not loose its grip on the enemy's throat.