It rained like cats and dogs that night— The kid—he rambled on; We sat, we two, by candle-light In a tavern in Ballon. “The first I killed—that hand-made dirk, Well that’s a souvenir! I got it cheap—though that poor Turk, It cost him pretty dear.
“He’d jumped our trench—the fog was thick— Thinks I—‘one of our men’ Still I yelled ‘Halt!’—he beat it quick, And then I yelled again. And on he went—I watched him till He scrambled to the top— Says I—‘Not if I know it, Bill!’ And then I saw him drop.
“Our First Lieutenant heard me blaze And soon he came along, I stood there in a kind of daze And then he said ‘What’s wrong?’
I told him and he said ‘Good work, Suppose we have a look’— He yanked a button from the Turk, I showed you what I took.
“That night I tried and tried to pray, But something, it began To pound away inside and say ‘Hey boy—you’ve killed a man!’ I just could see his clotted head In mud—the blood it ran— Oh God—all night! while something said ‘Hey boy—you’ve killed a man!’
“You’ll go to Hell—that’s where you’ll go”— For once the kid was still— “It’s funny how it gets you so, The first man that you kill. And yet—it’s just as funny too, How killin’ seems all right When hate gets jazzin’ ’round in you, Once when you’re in the fight.
“That’s how it was the day our squad Got blowed to Kingdom Come When Fritzie’s steel plowed up the sod Down there along the Somme.
My first machine-gun man stood there, As near as me to you— It tore his head off clean and bare And ripped his chest all through.
“You don’t stop much for scruples when You’ve seen a sight like that, The rest of us advanced again, Their pills came pit-a-pat. Another fell—I grabbed his gun And left him my canteen, And then I started in to run Up toward a Boche machine.
“I ducked around—for two more men That Jerry there had picked, Got in behind—and leveled when The damned thing only clicked! Down went his hand, I saw his game, He grabbed his Luger, but I swung my stock and down it came Upon his bloomin’ nut.