Which kicked up the deuce of a mess.

We’d been fighting five days without resting,

When the eighth line of trenches we took;

For ev’ry man there was a hero—

From me to the company’s cook.

And there was the knoll just before us—

Some two hundred paces or more;

With barb-wire and bayonets bristling,

And the parapets sloppy with gore.

And the howitzers roared like perdition