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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=508180" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Afternoon Tea</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea;<br>Cows weren't allowed in the trenches -- got out of the habit, y'see.)<br>As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten:<br>"Come on, lads!" he shouts, "and we'll show 'em," and he sprang to the head of the men.<br>Then some bally thing seemed to trip him, and he fell on his face with a slam. . . .<br>Oh, he died like a true British soldier, and the last word he uttered was "Damn!"<br>And hang it! I loved the old fellow, and something just burst in my brain,<br>And I cared no more for the bullets than I would for a shower of rain.<br>'Twas an awf'ly funny sensation (I say, this is jolly nice tea);<br>I felt as if something had broken; by gad! I was suddenly free.<br>Free for a glorified moment, beyond regulations and laws,<br>Free just to wallow in slaughter, as the chap of the Stone Age was.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So on I went joyously nursing a Berserker rage of my own,<br>And though all my chaps were behind me, feeling most frightf'ly alone;<br>With the bullets and shells ding-donging, and the "krock" and the swish of the shrap;<br>And I found myself humming "Ben Bolt" . . . (Will you pass me the sugar, old chap?<br>Two lumps, please). . . . What was I saying? Oh yes, the jolly old dash;<br>We simply ripped through the barrage, and on with a roar and a crash.<br>My fellows -- Old Nick couldn't stop 'em. On, on they went with a yell,<br>Till they tripped on the Boches' sand-bags, -- nothing much left to tell:<br>A trench so tattered and battered that even a rat couldn't live;<br>Some corpses tangled and mangled, wire you could pass through a sieve.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The jolly old guns had bilked us, cheated us out of our show,<br>And my fellows were simply yearning for a red mix-up with the foe.<br>So I shouted to them to follow, and on we went roaring again,<br>Battle-tuned and exultant, on in the leaden rain.<br>Then all at once a machine gun barks from a bit of a bank,<br>And our Major roars in a fury: "We've got to take it on flank."<br>He was running like fire to lead us, when down like a stone he comes,<br>As full of "typewriter" bullets as a pudding is full of plums.<br>So I took his job and we got 'em. . . . By gad! we got 'em like rats;<br>Down in a deep shell-crater we fought like Kilkenny cats.<br>'Twas pleasant just for a moment to be sheltered and out of range,<br>With someone you saw to go for -- it made an agreeable change.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the Boches that missed my bullets, my chaps gave a bayonet jolt,<br>And all the time, I remember, I whistled and hummed "Ben Bolt".<br>Well, that little job was over, so hell for leather we ran,<br>On to the second line trenches, -- that's where the fun began.<br>For though we had strafed 'em like fury, there still were some Boches about,<br>And my fellows, teeth set and eyes glaring, like terriers routed 'em out.<br>Then I stumbled on one of their dug-outs, and I shouted: "Is anyone there?"<br>And a voice, "Yes, one; but I'm wounded," came faint up the narrow stair;<br>And my man was descending before me, when sudden a cry! a shot!<br>(I say, this cake is delicious. You make it yourself, do you not?)<br>My man? Oh, they killed the poor devil; for if there was one there was ten;<br>So after I'd bombed 'em sufficient I went down at the head of my men,<br>And four tried to sneak from a bunk-hole, but we cornered the rotters all right;<br>I'd rather not go into details, 'twas messy that bit of the fight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But all of it's beastly messy; let's talk of pleasanter things:<br>The skirts that the girls are wearing, ridiculous fluffy things,<br>So short that they show. . . . Oh, hang it! Well, if I must, I must.<br>We cleaned out the second trench line, bomb and bayonet thrust;<br>And on we went to the third one, quite calloused to crumping by now;<br>And some of our fellows who'd passed us were making a deuce of a row;<br>And my chaps -- well, I just couldn't hold 'em; (It's strange how it is with gore;<br>In some ways it's just like whiskey: if you taste it you must have more.)<br>Their eyes were like beacons of battle; by gad, sir! they COULDN'T be calmed,<br>So I headed 'em bang for the bomb-belt, racing like billy-be-damned.<br>Oh, it didn't take long to arrive there, those who arrived at all;<br>The machine guns were certainly chronic, the shindy enough to appal.<br>Oh yes, I omitted to tell you, I'd wounds on the chest and the head,<br>And my shirt was torn to a gun-rag, and my face blood-gummy and red.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'm thinking I looked like a madman; I fancy I felt one too,<br>Half naked and swinging a rifle. . . . God! what a glorious "do".<br>As I sit here in old Piccadilly, sipping my afternoon tea,<br>I see a blind, bullet-chipped devil, and it's hard to believe that it's me;<br>I see a wild, war-damaged demon, smashing out left and right,<br>And humming "Ben Bolt" rather loudly, and hugely enjoying the fight.<br>And as for my men, may God bless 'em! I've loved 'em ever since then:<br>They fought like the shining angels; they're the pick o' the land, my men.<br>And the trench was a reeking shambles, not a Boche to be seen alive --<br>So I thought; but on rounding a traverse I came on a covey of five;<br>And four of 'em threw up their flippers, but the fifth chap, a sergeant, was game,<br>And though I'd a bomb and revolver he came at me just the same.<br>A sporty thing that, I tell you; I just couldn't blow him to hell,<br>So I swung to the point of his jaw-bone, and down like a ninepin he fell.<br>And then when I'd brought him to reason, he wasn't half bad, that Hun;<br>He bandaged my head and my short-rib as well as the Doc could have done.<br>So back I went with my Boches, as gay as a two-year-old colt,<br>And it suddenly struck me as rummy, I still was a-humming "Ben Bolt".<br>And now, by Jove! how I've bored you. You've just let me babble away;<br>Let's talk of the things that matter -- your car or the newest play. . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+William+Service">Robert William Service</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=508180" data-title="Afternoon Tea de Robert William Service" data-description="As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea; Cows weren't allowed in the trenches -- got out of the habit, y'see.) As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten: "Come on, lads!" he shouts, "..."></div> </div> </div>
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