In the neck, poor Minen Werfer
Got she six of Pot-Gut’s Mills Bombs;
In the neck, or rather barrel,
Other four got Hiawatha,
Got, nor thanked the Lord for sending.
Woke he in the med’cine wig-wam,
Life had ceased to be one Huge Joke,
‘Where is now my Minen Werfer,’
Cried he, and from out the darkness,
Through the noise of many waters
Came the answer, ‘Minnie? Fini!
Fini! Na poo! Compris. Got me?’
Loud his voice raised Hiawatha
In a howling lamentation—
‘Farewell,’ said he, ‘Minen Werfer’
‘Farewell, O my Strafeing Mawt Ah,’
Both my ears are buried with you,
All my hair you’ve taken with you!
Come not back again to labour,
Come not back again to swelter
Up the line with post and rations.
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the regions of the cursed.
To the Hell reserved for Hun-men.’
This did I, O Pip. Q. Emma,
In the Great War with the Hun-man,
Thus fought I, your mighty kinsman,
Bomber Bee Tee Pot-Gut Woodbine.
From my knee slid Pip. Q. Emma,
What a liar! Pot-Gut Woodbine!”
It was agreed by all that this gem should not be lost to the world, and it was reproduced some months afterwards in the Hazeley Wail, a magazine published by the 1st Battalion wounded who had returned to the Reserve Battalion.
Hopes were now raised by rumours of another period in Corps Reserve and a return to Lillers, but the Division was not destined to leave without a little excitement, for in the early hours of the 15th of February, the last day at Loos was heralded by the blowing of a big mine by the Germans under the front line held by the 7th London Regiment on the immediate right of the Civil Service Rifles. A diary of a bomber describes it thus:—
“This morning I had just fallen asleep, after an arduous night fatigue, followed by a cold stand-to, when the earth walls of the dug-out shook with so violent a tremor that I thought we should have been buried alive. I rushed outside to find the enemy firing like mad! Rifle grenades, trench mortars, aerial torpedoes, and death-dealing whiz bangs were falling in all directions. Some 50 yards to our right a new volcano now reared its ugly sides to Heaven. The Teutons had got their own back. The mine was theirs. But before the earth had finished falling, our Private Sugars (attached 140th Brigade Machine Gun Company) from the front line trench, about 50 yards from the mine had turned his machine gun on to the position, and his continuous stream of lead stopped the German attempts to rush the crater. Indeed, a heap of slain told the losses of their bold but fruitless attacks. Alas! a party of the Seventh had met the fate we so dreaded ourselves! They had gone up with the mine! Truly our luck was in.
“In half an hour all firing ceased as if by consent, and we settled down to prepare breakfast. Bulldog Harris, the C.S.M. of ‘C’ Company, had been issuing rum at the time of the explosion. With great presence of mind he had saved the precious liquid from the falling debris with his cap. So we got our ration. Many of the new draft needed such a pick-me-up, for we quite thought the strafe was a prelude to a German attack. The enemy was said to have massed his reserves on this front in readiness for an offensive.
“Thank God we are to be relieved to-night! To-morrow we should be on terra firma again, far away from the terrors of mines and counter-mines. There will be no need to watch the sky for those fatal rockets or to fall flat on the trench path to escape the full fury of the nasty tearing Minnie.
“To good old Lillers with its ancient market place and quaint mediæval images of the saints carved in niches over the principal shops—a town now flowing with Bass, Worthington and cheap champagne—snug Auberges, too, where you can dine in luxury for 1 franc, 75 cents. To Lillers!”
The troops were naturally in the best of spirits on the morning of the departure for Lillers. The transport had to go the whole way by road, and started in a perfect blizzard at about 5.0 a.m.
The rest of the Battalion went by rail as usual from Nœux-les-Mines, and, soon after arriving at Lillers, the welcome news arrived that the Division had said good-bye to the Loos sector, and on its return to the front line would try conclusions with the Boche in a new area.