With the Colors / Songs of the American Service

by Everard Jack Appleton

"I didn't do a thing," he growls;
"'Twas just a fool mistake,
And he'd have captured me, of course,
If he had been awake.
He tried to talk (his battered mouth
Was just a shredded scar);
But we were wasting time, and so
I pushed him in the car
And came on back.... Now, what is there
About that sort of stuff
To make a fuss for? I am not
A hero.... I'm a bluff!"
The surgeon smiles.... "If he can make
A capture in the night
When doing Red Cross work, what would
He do if he should fight?"
He asks, and looks a long way off
To where the pounding guns
Are making other harmless wrecks
Of one-time hellish Huns.

I wonder if you know him? A slim and quiet kid,
Red-headed, tall, and soft of speech and glance;
He doesn't like to have you talk about the thing he did—
And yet he's got a medal from the Government of France.

THE PENGUIN DRIVER

At home, he drove a taxi,
A job he'd now disdain;
He's learning (on a queer machine)
To drive an aeroplane.
It doesn't fly—it glumps along
And bumps him, ev'ry chance;
His tumbling, rumbling "Penguin"
Out there—Somewhere in France.

It isn't fun to drive it,
But he's not out for fun;
He's going to learn to drop good bombs
Upon the no-good Hun!
And so, until he graduates,
He makes his Penguin prance—
His bumping, jumping Penguin
Out there—Somewhere in France.

As soon as he's a pilot,
(And earned his Golden Wings)
He'll take the air on high, you bet
And do some bully things!
The Prussians will be sorry
He ever learned to dance
With a rearing, tearing Penguin
Out there—Somewhere in France.

WAITIN'

Back of the Front in this durn trainin' camp,
Day after day we are stuck, an' we swear
Whenever we hear th' regular tramp
Of th' men who are through and are goin' somewhere.
We're all of us willin', but why keep us drillin'
Forever?... Just waitin' for somethin' to do!

At home they are readin' th' outlandish name
Of a battle that's won or a hero that's dead
Of a stunt that had won him a place in this Game—
But all that I've won is a cold in my head!
While others are fightin' we're readin' or writin'—
An' the censors will see that it don't get to you!

We long for a scrap that will sizzle the blood;
We hone for a chance to bust in a head;
This marchin' an' diggin' in acres of mud
Ain't as excitin' as bein' plain dead.
War may be a curse, but this here is worse—
This dreamin' th' dreams that never come true.