Between You and Me

Produced by Geoff Palmer, Berkeley, California
Author of A Minstrel in France NEW YORK
THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 1919
This book is dedicated to the Fathers and Mothers of the Boys who went and those who prepared to go.
Say, Mate, don't you figure it's great To think, when the war is all over, And we're thro' with the mud— And the spilling of blood, And we're shipped back again to old Dover; When they've paid us our tin And we've blown the lot in, And our very last penny is spent, We'll still have a thought, if that's all we've got: Well, I'm one of the boys who went.
Perhaps, later on, when the wild days are gone And you're settling down for life— You've a girl in your eye, you'll ask bye and bye To share up with you as your wife— Then, when a few years have flown And you've got chicks of your own And you're happy, and snug, and content, Man, it will make your heart glad When they boast of their Dad— My Dad—He was one of the boys who went.
It's a bonny world, I'm tellin' ye! It was worth saving, and saved it's been, if only you and I and the rest of us that's alive and fit to work and play and do our part will do as we should. I went around the world in yon days when there was war. I saw all manner of men. I saw them live, and fight, and dee. And now I'm back from the other side of the world again. And I'm tellin' ye again that it's a bonny world I've seen, but no so bonny a world as we maun make it—you and I. So let us speer a wee, and I'll be trying to tell you what I think, and what I've seen.
There'll be those going up and doon the land preaching against everything that is, and talking of all that should be. There'll be others who'll say that all is well, and that the man that wants to make a change is no better than Trotzky or a Hun. There'll be those who'll be wantin' me to let a Soviet tell me what songs to sing to ye, and what the pattern of my kilts should be. But what have such folk to say to you and me, plain folk that we are, with our work to do, and the wife and the bairns to be thinkin' of when it comes time to tak' our ease and rest? Nothin', I say, and I'll e'en say it again and again before I'm done.