SKY SIGNS
When all the guns are sponged and cleaned, and fuses go to store,
When all the wireless stations cry—"Come home, you ships of war"—
"Come home again and leave patrol, no matter where you be".
We'll see the lights of England shine,
Flashing again on the steaming line,
As out of the dark the long gray hulls come rolling in from sea.
The long-forgotten lights will shine, and gild the clouds ahead,
Over the dark horizon-line, across the dreaming dead
That went to sea with the dark behind and the spin of a coin before.
Mark the gleam of Orfordness,
Showing a road we used to guess,
From the Shetland Isles to Dover Cliffs—the shaded lane of war.
Up the Channel with gleaming ports will homing squadrons go,
And see the English coast alight with headlands all aglow
With thirty thousand candle-power flung up from far Gris-nez.
Portland Bill and the Needles' Light,
Tompions back in the guns to-night—
For English lights are meeting French across the Soldiers' Way.
When we come back to England then, with all the warring done,
And paint and polish come up the side to rule on tube and gun,
We'll know before the anchor's down, the tidings won't be new.
Lizard along to the Isle of Wight,
Every lamp was burning bright,
Northern Lights or Trinity House—we had the news from you!
Klaxon
By permission of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh
ORDER TO THE CANADIANS
AFTER THE CAPTURE OF MONS
(November, 1918)
Some of you have already commenced, while others are about to march on the Rhine, liberating Belgium in your advance. In a few days you will enter Germany and hold certain parts, in order to secure the fulfilment of the terms of the armistice preliminary to the peace treaty. The rulers of Germany, humiliated and demoralized, have fled. That unscrupulous nation, who in 1914 set at naught every treaty and violated every moral obligation, who has since perpetrated the most ferocious atrocities on land as well as on sea, is beaten, famished, and at our mercy. Justice has come. Retribution commences. During four long years, conscious of the righteousness of your cause, you have fought many battles and endured cruel hardships, and now your mighty efforts are rewarded. Your fallen comrades are avenged. You have demonstrated on the battle-field your superior courage and unfaltering energy. By the will of God you have won, won, won, marching triumphantly through Belgium. You will be received everywhere as liberators, but the kindness and generosity of the population must not cause any relaxation of your discipline or alertness. Your task is not yet completed, and you must remain what you are—a close-knitted army in grim, deadly earnest. German agents scattered throughout the country must not be able to report to their German masters any weakness or evidence of disintegration of your fighting power. It is essential that on the march and at the halt discipline must be of the highest standard. Every possible protection should be taken at all times to guard against hostile acts by organized bodies, and to lessen the possibilities, always present, of isolated murders or desperate guerilla acts by factions of the enemy. Above all, it is of capital importance to establish in Germany the sense of your overwhelming moral and physical standing, so as to complete by the presence of your potential strength the victories you have won on the battle-field. All external signs of discipline must be insisted upon, and the example in this, as in all instances, must come from the leaders.
Clothing and equipment must be, if possible, spotless, well kept, and well put on. Badges and distinguishing marks must be complete, while the transport should be as clean as the circumstances will allow. In short, you must continue to be, and appear to be, that powerful-hitting force which has won the fear and respect of your foes and the admiration of the world.
It is not necessary to say that the population and private property will be respected. You will always remember that you fought for justice, right, and decency, and that you cannot afford to fall short of these essentials, even in the country against which you have every right to feel bitter.
Rest assured that the crimes of Germany will receive adequate punishment. Attempts will be made, by insidious propaganda, to undermine the source of your strength; but you, the soldier citizens of the finest and most advanced democracy in the world, will treat such attempts with the contempt they deserve. You know that self-imposed, stern discipline has made you the hardest, most successful, and cleanest fighters of this war. Beginning by the immortal stand at the second battle of Ypres, you befittingly closed by the capture of Mons your fighting record, in which every battle you fought is a resplendent page of glory. I trust you, and the people at home trust you, while the memory of your dead comrades demands of you to bring back that glorious record, pure and unsullied, to Canada.
Arthur W. Currie, Lieut.-Gen. Commanding Canadian Corps