There you are, you see!  Oh! it makes you sore,
   When a bloke you despised at ’ome
In them pifflin’ days of the years before
Takes a odds-on chance with the God of War,
‘N’ he tows you out with his left lung tore,
   ‘N’ a crack in his bleedin’ dome!

’Twas a lad called Hugh done ez much for
      me. 
   (He has curls ‘n’ he’s fair ‘n’ slim). 
Well, I mind the days in the Port when we
Puts it over Hugh coz we don’t agree
With his tone ‘n’ style, ‘n’ my foot was free
   When the push made a hack of him.

Now he’s paid me back.  I had struck a snag,
   And must creep through the battle spume
All a flamin’ age, with a grinnin’ jag
In me thigh, for water, or jest a fag. 
Like a crippled snake I was forced to drag
   Shattered flesh till the crack of doom.

When they saw me he was the one who came. 
   ‘N’ he give me a raffish grin
‘N’ a swig.  I wasn’t so bad that shame
Didn’t get me then, for the lad was lame. 
They had passed him his, but his ’art was
      game. 
   ‘N’ he coughed ez he brought me in.

I have tackled God on me bended knees,
   So He’ll save him alive ‘n’ whole,
For the sake of one who he thinks he sees
When the Nurse’s hands bring a kind of ease;
And I thank God, too, for the things like these
   That have give me a sort of soul.

There are Percies, Algies, ‘n’ Claudes I’ve
      met
   Who could take it ‘n’ come agen,
While the bullets flew in a screamin’ jet. 
What in pain, ‘n’ death, and in mire ‘n’ sweat
I ’ave learned from them that I won’t forget
   Is a way of not judgin’ men.

SISTER ANN.

I’m lyin’ in a narrow bed,
   ‘N’ starin’ at a wall. 
Where all is white my plastered head
   Is whitest of it all. 
My life is jist a whitewashed blank,
   With flamin’ spurts of pain. 
I dunno who I’ve got to thank,
I’ve p’raps been trod on by a tank,
   Or caught out in the rain
   When skies were peltin’ fish-plates, bricks
     ‘n’ lengths of bullock-chain.

I’m lyin’ here, a sulky swine,
   ‘N’ hatin’ of the bloke
Who’s in the doss right next to mine
   With ’arf his girders broke. 
He never done no ’arm t me,
   ‘N’ he’s pertickler ill;
But I have got him snouted, see,
‘N’ all old earth beside but she
   Come with the chemist’s swill,
   ‘N’ puts a kind, soft ’and on mine, ‘n’ all
     my nark is still.

She ain’t a beaut, she’s thirty two,
   She scales eleven stone;
But, ’struth, I didn’t think it true
   There was such women grown! 
She’s nurse ‘n’ sister, mum ‘n’ dad,
   ‘N’ all that straight ‘n’ fine
In every girl I ever had. 
When Gabr’el comes, ‘n’ all the glad
   Young saints are tipped the sign,
   You’ll see this donah take her place, first
     angel in the line!