"If the Sergeant steals your rum, never mind;
If the Sergeant steals your rum, NEVER MIND;
(loudly wailed)
He's had a son of a gun of a time, since they chased him up the line.
If the Sergeant steals your rum, NEVER MIND."
(With great feeling and a well simulated air of
resignation.)
Songs the folks were singing back home began to come to the boys in the trenches about that time, and for a while it seemed that the days of the trench song proper had almost departed. There was one faint-hearted attempt at rhythm about the insect pests, and another to immortalise the "Minnie" (Minenwerfer shell, trench mortar, noiseless in flight, and very destructive), but the minstrel boys came into their own again when the new and old divisions went back again to Ypres. "Blighty" (a word derived from the Hindustani, and having a wide meaning covering wounds, hospitals, home, and Paradise) was much in the mouths of the Canucks, so they sang:—
"Blighty, in dear old Blighty, fair land across the foam,
Some people call it England, some people call it home,
But we just call it Blighty, dear land across the sea,
Where Kaiser William hopes some day his hymn of Hate he'll live to play,
In Blighty, so dear to me."
At the Somme a year ago they had a rollicking song to the air of "Chesapeake Bay," wherein they told of hunting Fritz to the Hindenberg line, and they still find time to warble parodies and limericks such as:
"There was a young lady of 'Wipers,'
Who was awfully fond of the pipers.
At the very first sound,
She would follow them round,
In spite of the shells and the snipers."
And:
"Sing a song of five francs, Tommy feeling dry,
Four and twenty 'Kamerads' standing all close by;
When the place was opened, Tommy shouts 'Hooray,'
Up comes an M.P.,[3] and orders them away."
Another typical song the British troops sang was:
"Standing in the trenches on a cold winter's night,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
Wiring party working and we darn't show a light,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
Pity the poor old soldier,
Pity the poor young soldier,
Pity the poor old soldier,
Standing in the rain and the cold.
Going reconnoit'ring on a cold winter's night,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
When we meet with Fritzy then there'll be a fight,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
Pity the poor old soldier,
Pity the poor young soldier,
Pity the poor old soldier,
Standing in the rain and the cold.
Burying stiff 'uns on a cold winter's night,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
When the big 'un hit 'em, don't they look a sight,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
Pity the poor old soldier,
Pity the poor young soldier
Pity the poor old soldier,
Standing in the rain and the cold.
Going back to Blighty on a cold winter's night,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
When we get to Blighty, then we'll be all right,
Aw Gawblimey, ain't it cold?
Pity the poor old soldier,
Pity the poor young soldier,
Pity the poor old soldier,
Standing in the rain and the cold."
The popularity of "My Little Grey Home in the West" brought to birth a dismal parody entitled "My Little Wet Home in the Trench," and many other popular songs have had striking parodies composed on them by the singing Britishers in Flanders.