The Spirit of the New Armies
Trudge and slip on the shell-hole's lip, and fall in the clinging mire—
Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!
Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump clear!
Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! And duck when the shells come near!
Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench,
With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden khaki's stench!
Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can—
This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.
And if anyone should think that this means the permanent establishment of militarism in our midst let him be comforted by the saying of an old sergeant-major when asked to give a character of one of his men. "He's a good man in the trenches, and a good man in a scrap; but you'll never make a soldier of him." The new armies fight all the harder because they want to make an end not of this war but of all wars. As for the regulars, there is no need to enlarge on their valour. But it is pleasant to put on record the description of an officer's servant which has reached Mr. Punch from France: "Valet, cook, porter, boots, chamber-maid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coalheaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind."
Parliament is not sitting, but there is, unfortunately, no truth in the report that in order to provide billets for 5,000 new typists and incidentally to win the War, the Government has commandeered the Houses of Parliament. The Times Literary Supplement received 335 books of original verse in 1916, and it is rumoured that Mr. Edward Marsh may very shortly take up his duties as Minister of Poetry and the Fine Arts. Mr. Marsh has not yet decided whether he will appoint Mr. Asquith or Mr. Winston Churchill as his private secretary. Meanwhile, a full list of the private secretaries of the new private secretaries of the members of the new Government may at any moment be disclosed to a long suffering public.
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