* * * * *

[Illustration:  New Hand.  “Flies seem pretty awful out here, Corporal.”

Hardened Campaigner.  “Wot flies?”]

* * * * *

On Vimy Ridge.

TO B.S.B., JULY 11TH.

  On Vimy Ridge I sit at rest
    With Loos and Lens outspread below;
  An A.D.C.—­the very best—­
    Expounds the panoramic show;
  Lightly I lunch, and never yet
    Has quite so strong an orchestration
  Supplied the music while I ate
      My cold collation.

  Past Avion through the red-roofed town
    There at our feet our white line runs;
  Fresnoy’s defences, smoking brown,
    Shudder beneath our shattering guns;
  Pop-pop!—­and Archie’s puffs have blurred
    Some craft engaged to search the Bosch out—­
  I hold my breath until the bird
      Signals a wash-out.

  Scarce I believe the vision real,
    That here for life and death they fight;
  A “Theatre of War,” I feel,
    Has set its stage for my delight,
  Who occupy, exempt from toll,
    This auditorium, green and tufty,
  Guest of the Management and sole
      Object in mufti.

  And now along the fretted ground
    Where Canada’s “Byng Boys” stormed their way,
  I go conducted on the round
    That George of Windsor did to-day;
  Immune he trod that zone of lead,
    And how should I, who just write verses,
  Hope to attract to my poor head
      Their “Perishing Percies”?

  Bapaume had nearly been my tomb;
    And greatly flattered I should be
  If I could honestly assume
    The beastly shell was meant for me;
  But though my modesty would shun
    To think this thought (or even say it),
  I feel I owe the Kaiser one
      And hope to pay it.

  O.S.

* * * * *

How to cure the Bosch.

“Yes, I seen a good bit o’ the Bosch, one way and another, before he got me in the leg,” said Corporal Digweed.  “Eighteen months I had with ’im spiteful, and four months with ’im tame.  Meaning by that four months guarding German prisoners.”

“And what do you think of him at the end of it?” I asked.

Digweed leant back with a heavily judicial air.

“Some o’ these Peace blighters seem to think he’s a little angel, basin’ their opinion, I suppose, on something I must ‘a’ missed during my time out.  On the other hand there’s a tidy few thinks that one German left will spoil the earth.  Now me, I holds they’re both wrong.  The second’s nearer than what the first is, I don’t deny.  But a incident what occurred in that Prisoners’ Camp set me thinking that you might make something o’ Fritz yet, if you only had the time and the patience.