The singers broke down and the lines had to be left out.
The following was sent by Private Ingram, 2nd Welsh Regiment, to cheer up his mother and encourage his brother:
"As you say, the Germans do want 'boiling,' and we are all trying our best to do it, too. I am glad to hear Arthur In romance and even in history it is the lover who shines in war, who achieves, who conquers, whose deeds of daring save situations at the psychological moment and help to win battles and wars. When the Guards were leaving London for the war, a girl leaning on the arm of her soldier lover said, "Keep your pecker up, Dick." "'Taint me," he replied, "as needs keep my pecker up, but German Bill." Women have much to do with keeping up or keeping down a soldier's "pecker." "Thy voice is heard through rolling drums In a letter from the front, a private of the Leicestershire Regiment wrote: "There was a chap of the Berkshires who, like many more of us, had 'listed after a row with his girl. At the crossing of the Aisne he got hit, and had just breath enough to tell me the name of the girl and ask me to write to her. 'Tell her,' he said, 'I'm sorry we had that row, but it was for the best, for if we hadn't had it I should not have been able to do my bit for my country. It seems awfully hard that I can never see her again to explain things to her, but I'm sure she will think better of me now than if I had been one of the stay-at-homes. Good-bye, old chap; there'll be no more cold nights in the trenches for me, anyhow.'" Sergeant E.W. Turner, West Kent Regiment, wrote to his sweetheart: "The bullet that wounded me at Mons went into one breast pocket and came out of the other, and in its course passed through your photo." A man said that when hit by a splinter of shell he believed half his face had gone, but was now sure that when the bruises had gone from his eyes his girl would recognise him. A R.F. Artillery gunner wrote: "I harnessed up, and after a mad gallop of 2,000 yards or so we came into our first action. We opened fire immediately. It was just like our practice camp, except that I think everybody realised that we were firing at targets composed of flesh and blood instead of canvas, but having to concentrate our minds on the working of the guns it soon passed off."
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes
And gives the battle to his hands."