Off for the Trenches. ——
When a certain regiment of American doughboys departed from its billets in a little town back of the front and marched away to our trenches in Lorraine, this poem was found tacked up on a billet door:—
By the rifle on my back,
By my old and well-worn pack,
By the bayonets we sharpened in the billets down below,
When we’re holding to a sector,
By the howling, jumping hector,
Colonel, we’ll be Gott-Strafed if the Blank-teenth lets it go.
And the Boches big and small,
Runty ones and Boches tall,
Won’t keep your boys a-squatting in the ditches very long;
For we’ll soon be busting through, sir,
God help Fritzie when we do, sir—
Let’s get going, Colonel Blank, because we’re feeling mighty strong.