Tommy Atkins at War: As Told in His Own LettersKilpatrick, James Alexander
History
Tommy Atkins at War: As Told in His Own Letters
Kilpatrick, James Alexander
Great Britain. Army -- Military life; World War, 1914-1918
"Send out the Army and Navy,
Send out the rank and file,
(Have a banana!)
Send out the brave Territorials,
They easily can run a mile.
(I don't think!)
Send out the boys' and the girls' brigade,
They will keep old England free:
Send out my mother, my sister, and my brother,
But for goodness sake don't send me."
It is doggerel, of course, but it has a certain cleverness as a satire
on the music-hall song of the day, and the Gordons carried it gaily with
them to their battlefields, blending it in that odd mixture of humor and
tragedy that makes up the soldier's life. The bravest, it is truly said,
are always the happiest, and of the happy warriors who have fallen in
this campaign one must be remembered here in this little book of British
heroism. He died bravely on the hill of Jouarre, near La Ferte, and his
comrades buried him where he fell. On a little wooden cross are
inscribed the simple words, "T. Campbell, Seaforths."
VII
THE INTREPID IRISH
"There's been a divil av lot av talk about Irish disunion," says Mr.
Dooley somewhere, "but if there's foightin' to be done it's the bhoys
that'll let nobody else thread on the Union Jack." That is the Irish
temperament all over, and in these days when history is being written in
lightning flashes the rally of Ireland to the old flag is inspiring, but
not surprising.
Political cynics have always said that England's difficulty would be
Ireland's opportunity, but they did not reckon with the paradoxical
character of the Irish people. England's difficulty has indeed been
Ireland's opportunity--the opportunity of displaying that generous
nature which has already contributed thousands of men to the
Expeditionary Force, and is mustering tens of thousands more under the
patriotic stimulus of those old political enemies, Mr. John Redmond and
Sir Edward Carson. The civil war is "put off," as one Irish soldier
expresses it; old enmities are laid aside and Orange and Green are
fighting shoulder to shoulder, on old battlefields whose names are writ
in glory upon the colors.
No more cheerful regiments than the Irish are to be found in the firing
line. Their humor in the trenches, their love of songs, and their dash
in action are manifested in all their letters. An English soldier,
writing home, says that even in the midst of a bayonet charge an
Irishman can always raise a laugh. "Look at thim divils retratin' with
their backs facin' us," was an Irish remark about the Germans that made
his fellows roar. And when the Fusiliers heard the story of the Kaiser's
lucky shamrock, one of them said: "Sure, an' it'll be moighty lucky for
him if he doesn't lose it"; adding to one of three comrades, "There'll
be a leaf apiece for us, Hinissey, when we get to Berlin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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