Childling, daughter of the prairies,
Born where rushing waters thunder
(Near the Elephant and Castle
Hard against the Old Kent Gas Works)—
Listen how my kinsman Potgut
Put to flight the wily Hun-bird;
Popped it right up Hiawatha,
Fritz von Rudolph Hiawatha
And his spouse, Frau Minen Werfer.
Know you first how Hiawatha
Wooed his buxom Minen Werfer—
Learned the names of all her spare parts,
Learned her—barrel, charge and striker,
Strength of charge and detonator—
Took to parts her complex innards,
At her home, the Trench Mawt Ah Skool.
Skool am Trenchgranatenkruppe
Bureau Bomski vor Vlamingen
Mawt Ah Markwun Star How Itza
Teufel Bligh Mee Mawt Ah Oh Mi.
Took he Minnie to his bosom,
On his deer-skin wore her totem,
Wore he swankily Kross Mawt Ahs,
Token of his life’s gymkhana.
Not that Fritz’s life was one huge joke!
Or as ripe as Methu-Selah’s—
Trained he three moons with his Minnie,
Three moons—no leave—hell’s sweat—oh, hell!
Three months with the Umpteenth Na Poos.
Up the line went Hiawatha
In a truck designed for cattle
Labelled ‘London via Calais,’
By a poor misguided Fun-Man,
Poor, deluded fool Hun-Fun-Man,
Reveller in Herr Wolffe’s Folk-lore—
Grimm, Hans Andersen and Æsop
(Mighty joss-men in invention,
Fertile in imagination).
Westward on his way to Calais
Blithely journeys Hiawatha,
Counts the hours till on the Boulevard
He shall dance with Minen Werfer;
Counts the hours—and in the meantime
Bully beef imbibes—and curses.
To a full stop came the puff-puff,
Is this Calais, guard, or Paris?
Houndsditch, Croydon, Piccadilly?
New Cross Empire or the Abbey?
Tersely came the answer—‘Hulluch.’
Up the trench went Hiawatha,
With his jolly old Trench Mawt Ah,
Grunting, sweating, cursing, went he,
Vanished all his former blitheness.
On his side the British Tumai,
Mustered in his front-line trenches,
Mustered. Picked men of the Lun-duns.
From the Base Camps, o’er the Prairies,
Came the Warriors from The Village,
Little Village by The River,
Lun-Dun, homestead of the Cocquenays.
Came the Blackfoot Cee Essah Hipes,
Came the jolly old Westminsters.
Came Loo Eeza’s own Shoshonies,
Came the Choctan Stepney Long-Bows.
Came the Amazon-like Scott Ish,
Sinkers of the raiding ‘Emden,’
Maid-like clad, yet Mighty Warriors.
Never could one say of ‘Minnie’
As of Darling Clementine—
‘Light she was and like a fairy’—
For her Bore was 4·9,
Treble ply in all her braces
(Which were not the same as Fritz’s)
Manners none had Minen Werfer,
Minen Werfer, Strafe-ing Mawt Ah.
Spat she openly with gusto,
Vomited great land-torpedoes—
Spat she rations of contumely
At the grim-faced, grimy Tumai.
In the trench among the Tumais,
Sore-strafed, half-drowned, tortured Tumais,
Was thy kinsman Pot-Gut Woodbine,
Bomber Pot-Gut Bee Tee Woodbine,
Crouching red-faced o’er his brazier,
Puffing, blowing at the embers,
Heeding not the rage of Minnie.
Reckless he of flying fragments
Till a piece dropped in his dixie,
Flopping, dropped right home to Dixie.
Up rose Pot-Gut in his anger,
In his hand he seized a Mills Bomb,
In a loud voice bellowed ‘Pin Out’
(War-cry of the Cee Ess Bombers).
Strong of arm was Pot-Gut Woodbine,
He could throw ten Mills Bombs upward,
Throw them with such strength and swiftness,
That the tenth had left his fingers
Ere the first to earth had fallen.