ON THE HIGH C.'S.
Doubtless you have often heard
Of the thrush, that gladsome bird,
Who will warble any day,
Be it cold or wet or gray.
I suppose her mother taught her
That the worms are fond of water,
So that neither sleet nor slush
Bridles that eupeptic thrush.
Such a one was Johnny Carr
(Sub-Lieutenant R.N.R.).
I have never caught him yet
Out of sorts when it was wet;
He will hum when tempests howl,
Whistle midst the thunder's growl,
And I've seen him sing for joy,
Clinging to a punctured buoy,
While his gallant T.B.D.
Sank beside him in the sea.
No one knows exactly when or
Why he came to call it tenor,
But the fact remains he sang
With a subtle nasal twang
Just because he liked to do so
(He was Carr, but not CARUSO),
And with such a force of lung
That, whatever tune he sung,
It was like a projectile
With a range of twenty mile.
'Twas the thirty-first of May.
On that memorable day,
Flitting like a restless ghost
Somewhere off the Danish coast,
His destroyer, all agog,
Butted through the clinging fog,
When for just a space the gray
Mists of morning rolled away.
Ah! but how their pulses beat
When they saw the High Seas Fleet
Nosing noiseless as a dream
Barely half-a-mile abeam;
Then the filmy mists anew
Blotted everything from view.
John, astounded at the sight,
Sang aloud with all his might.
But the German, seeing nought,
Only hearing what he thought
Must be twelve-inch guns at least
Firing at him from the East,
Felt that it was time to hook it,
Saw his chance and boldly took it.
Northward fast he sailed once more
Till he heard the Lion roar,
And before he could retreat he
Found himself engaged with BEATTY,
Who, as you already know,
Led him on to JELLICOE.
There I leave him, for, you see,
All the rest is history.
All the rest? Well, not quite all;
For perhaps you may recall
How, when night was falling fast,
A reverberating blast
Far away was dimly heard
Which, the sailormen averred,
Was the Germans who had strayed
In amongst the mines we laid.
They were wrong. The fighting over,
Johnny's ship returned to Dover,
And the sound they heard afar
Was the jocund voice of Carr
Singing fit to burst his torso,
Like the song-thrush (only more so).
"ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS FUND.—At the Savoy Hotel, on June 11, at 8 p.m. Service dress—khaki with trousers—or evening dress, with miniatures."—Times.
The price of clothes was bound to lead to something of this sort.
From an article on "The Representative Man":—
"Gladstone and John Bright alike came out of Lancashire. How natural to fmgeine etther of those startling ogposites proclaiming with entire conviction, that when he samped himself he foundthimself to be a 'Typical Englishman.' The diversity of types however does not help us much."—Indian Paper.
True, we find it most confusing.
