V The Songs Our Soldiers Sing
The necessity for poetry and song is fully and officially recognized by the military authorities at the Front. Every Division has its own concert party. These men are chosen out of the ranks because they can sing, and their one task is to furnish nightly concerts for the men. They are provided with a good hall, or tent, or open-air position; and they are given enough money to buy stage scenery and appropriate dress. Everybody attends the concerts from the general to the private; and while the entertainments last, the war is forgotten. A charge is made at the door but the balance sheet is published for all ranks to see; and the profits are distributed among the Divisional charities.
Among the many Divisional Concert Parties may be named “The Bow Bells,” “The Duds,” “The Follies,” “The Whizz-bangs,” “The Fancies” and, “The Giddigoats.” But, after all, the singing in the concert rooms is but a small fraction of the singing one hears in the Army. On every march, in every billet and mess, there is the sound of singing. Nor must the singing at our religious services and in the Y.M.C.A. huts be forgotten. Song seems to be the great renewer of hope and courage. It is the joy bringer. Moreover, it is an expression of emotions that can find no other voice.
There is no real difference between the songs sung by the officers, and those sung by the men. All attend the concerts and all sing on the march. The same songs do for both commanders and commanded, and I have heard the same songs in the men’s billets as in the officers’ mess-rooms. How real these songs are to the soldiers is indicated by one striking omission. There are no patriotic songs at the Front. Except the National Anthem rendered on formal occasions, I have never, in eighteen months, heard a single patriotic song. The reason is not far to seek. The soldiers’ patriotism calls for no expression in song. They are expressing it night and day in the endurance of hardship and wounds—in the risking of their lives. Their hearts are satisfied with their deeds, and songs of such a character become superfluous. In peace-time they sing their love of the homeland, but in war-time they suffer for her and are content. They would never think of singing a patriotic song as they march into battle. It would be painting the lily and gilding refined gold. Are not their deathless deeds, songs for which they make a foil by singing some inconsequential and evanescent song such as, “There’s something in the sea-side air.”
On analysis I should say that there are five subjects on which our soldiers sing. First, there are Nonsense Songs or, if you prefer it, songs of soldier-philosophy. They know that no theory will explain the war; it is too big a thing for any sheet of philosophy to cover. It has burst in on our little hum-drum life like a colliding planet. The thing to do is not to evolve a theory as to how the planet got astray but to clear up the mess it has made. Our soldiers show this sense of the vastness of war-happenings, by singing of things having no real importance at all, and keeping steadily at their duties. The path of duty is, they find, the only path of sanity. The would-be war philosopher they put on one side. The war is too big for him. Let him leave his explanation of the war and lend a hand to bring it to an end. So they sing, with laughing irony,
“We’re here because we’re here, because
We’re here, because we’re here.”
Or,
“While you’ve got a lucifer to light your fag,
Smile, boys, that’s the style.
What’s the use of worrying?
It never was worth while,
So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag
And smile, smile, smile.”
Another favorite is,
“Oh, there was a little hen and she had a wooden leg,
The best little hen that ever laid an egg,
And she laid more eggs than any hen on the farm,
And another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm.”
I have seen them dancing round some old piano singing,
“Oh, that fascinating Bow Bells’ glide,
It’s a captivating Bow Bells’ slide.
There’s a rumor that the puma does it now,
Monkeys have taken to it,
Leopards and lions do it.
All the elephants wear dancing shoes,
They keep hopping with the kangaroos;
Hear them chatter, it’s a matter for some talk;
Now the Jungle’s got the Bow Bells’ walk.”
The second class of song is the Love Song, of a more or less serious character. The Tommies came out of England singing “Tipperary,” but they dropped it in France, and the only one on whose lips I have heard it was a little French boy sitting on the tail of a cart. The chorus alone gave it popularity for it was the expression, ready to hand, of a long farewell; and with its “long long way to go” showed that, like Kitchener, the soldiers were not deceived by hopes of an early peace.
Now another song with verses more expressive of their sentiments has taken its place. The chorus runs:
“There’s a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And a white moon beams;
There’s a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I’ll be going down
That long, long trail with you.”
Then the mood changes, and we hear the lads piping out,
“Taffy’s got his Jennie in Glamorgan,
Sandy’s got his Maggie in Dundee,
While Michael O’Leary thinks of his dearie
Far across the Irish Sea.
Billy’s got his Lily up in London,
So the boys march on with smiles;
For every Tommy’s got a girl somewhere
In the dear old British Isles.”
Again the mood veers round, and we hear,
“Every little while I feel so lonely,
Every little while I feel so blue,
I’m always dreaming, I’m always scheming,
Because I want you, and only you.
Every little while my heart is aching,
Every little while I miss your smile,
And all the time I seem to miss you;
I want to, want to kiss you,
Every, every, every little while.”
Here is part of a song I have heard sung, many and many a time, by young officers and men whose voices are now silent in death:
“If you were the only girl in the world,
And I were the only boy,
Nothing else would matter in the world to-day,
We could go on loving in the same old way;
A Garden of Eden just made for two,
With nothing to mar our joy;
I would say such wonderful things to you,
There would be such wonderful things to do,
If you were the only girl in the world,
And I were the only boy.”
Sometimes the imagination will wander into the days that are to be—for some—and they sing,
“We don’t want a lot of flags flying,
We don’t want your big brass bands;
We don’t want a lot of speechifying,
And we don’t want a lot of waving hands;
We don’t want a lot of interfering,
When we’ve safely crossed the foam;
But we do want to find the girls we left behind,
When we all come marching home.”
Will the girls remember! The words are not without tragedy. How deeply some of the men love may perhaps never be realized by those at home. The longing of their hearts is, at times, almost unbearable. A captain, past middle life, took my arm one day and led me aside. He was, he said, a little anxious about himself, for he was getting into the habit of taking more drink than he was wont to take. He had been taking it when he felt lonely and depressed to ease the longing of his heart.
“I never touch it at home,” he said, “the society of my dear little wife is all the stimulant I need. I would give the world to be with her now—just to sit in my chair and watch her at her sewing or knitting. The separation is too much for me and, you know, it has lasted nearly three years now.”
I have caught this yearning in more than one of the songs our soldiers sing, but especially in the following, which is called “Absent”:
“Sometimes, between long shadows on the grass,
The little truant waves of sunlight pass;
My eyes grow dim with tenderness, the while
Thinking I see thee, thinking I see thee smile.
“And sometimes in the twilight gloom, apart,
The tall trees whisper, whisper heart to heart;
From my fond lips the eager answers fall,
Thinking I hear thee, thinking I hear thee call.”
The men’s thoughts pass easily from the sweetheart to the mother who bore them, and we have a third class, the Home Song. I have been awakened in the night by men, going up to the line, singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” It is very thrilling to hear in the dead of night, when every singer is within range of the enemy’s guns.
Another great favorite is,
“They built a little garden for the rose,
And they called it Dixie-land;
They built a summer breeze to keep the snows
Far away from Dixie-land;
They built the finest place I’ve known,
When they built my home sweet home;
Nothing was forgotten in the land of cotton,
From the clover to the honey-comb,
And then they took an angel from the skies
And they gave her heart to me.
She had a bit of heaven in her eyes
Just as blue as blue can be;
They put some fine spring chickens in the land,
And taught my Mammy how to use a frying pan.
They made it twice as nice as paradise,
And they called it Dixie-land.”
Being Londoners, the following song called “Leave” never fails in its appeal to our Division:
“I’m so delighted, I’m so excited,
With my folks I’m going to be united.
The train’s departing, ’twill soon be starting;
I’ll see my mother, my dad and my baby brother.
My! How I’ll meet them, My! how I’ll greet them.
What a happy happy day.
Just see that bustle, I’d better hustle,
Good-bye—so long—can’t stay—
Chorus
“I’m on my way back to dear old Shepherd’s Bush,
That’s the spot where I was born,
Can’t you hear the porter calling,
Queen’s Road, Piccadilly, Marble Arch and Bond Street?
Oh, I’ll not hesitate, I’ll reach the gate;
Through the crowd I mean to push,
Find me a seat anywhere—please anywhere,
Tram, train, tube, ’bus I don’t care—
For mother and daddy are waiting there—
In dear old Shepherd’s Bush.”
On the eve of one big battle, a soldier handed me a letter in which he gave me the addresses of his father and his sweetheart, so that I could write to them if he fell.
“In the last battle,” he said, “one of my brothers was killed and another wounded. If I fall I shall die without regrets and with a heart content; but it will go hard with those at home; and I want you to break the news gently. These are terrible times for those at home.” “These are terrible times for those at home.” That is their constant refrain, and it finds an echo in a song often sung by them.
“It’s a long long way to my home in Kentucky,
Where the blue-bells grow ’round the old cabin door;
It’s a long, long way and I’ll be mighty lucky
When I see my dear old mammy once more.
So weep no more, my lady,
Just brush those tears away;
It’s a long long way to my home in Kentucky,
But I’m bound to get there some day.”
But the chief favorite of all Home Songs is, I think, the following:
“There’s an old-fashioned house in an old-fashioned street;
In a quaint little old-fashioned town;
There’s a street where the cobble stones harass the feet,
As it straggles up hill and then down;
And, though to and fro through the world I must go,
My heart while it beats in my breast,
Where e’er I may roam, to that old-fashioned home
Will fly like a bird to its nest.
“In that old-fashioned house in that old-fashioned street,
Dwell a dear little old-fashioned pair;
I can see their two faces so tender and sweet,
And I love every wrinkle that’s there.
I love ev’ry mouse in that old-fashioned house
In the street that runs up hill and down;
Each stone and each stick, ev’ry cobble and brick,
In that quaint little old-fashioned town.”
The charm of the Army is its comradeship. Our soldiers have left their homes and friends but they have found new friends, and some of the friendships have become very precious. Men slept side by side in barn and trench, cooked their rations at the same little wood fire, and stood together in the hour of danger and imminent death. Many of them owe their lives to their comrades. There are few songs that express this wonderful comradeship, but there is one that is known and sung through the army. It represents the Songs of Comradeship:
“When you come to the end of a perfect day,
And you sit alone with your thought,
While the chimes ring out with a carol gay,
For the joy that the day has brought;
Do you think what the end of a perfect day
Can mean to a tired heart,
When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,
And the dear friends have to part?
“Well, this is the end of a perfect day,
Near the end of a journey too;
But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,
With a wish that is kind and true.
For mem’ry has painted this perfect day
With colors that never fade;
And we find at the end of a perfect day
The soul of a friend we’ve made.”
The fifth class of song is that of the inner life. It is the Religious Hymn. The soldiers are extremely fond of hymns in their services. You cannot give them too many. “Rock of Ages,” “Jesus lover of my soul,” “Fight the good fight,” “There is a green hill,” “At even ere the sun was set,” “O God our help in ages past,” and “Eternal Father strong to save” cannot be chosen too often. But there are two hymns which have stood out above all others; they are “Abide with me,” and “When I survey the wondrous Cross.”
There is nothing written by the hand of man which can compete with these two in the blessing and strength which they have brought to our soldiers, especially during an offensive when death has cast his shadow over the hearts of all. During the bitterest weeks in the Somme fighting there was scarcely a service in which we did not sing “When I survey the wondrous Cross.” With its assurance of redemption it gave comfort in the face of death. It also gave, for an example, the Supreme Sacrifice.
Some of the songs I have quoted look bare and ungainly as trees in winter, but when the musician has clothed them with music and the singer added to them a touch of his own personality they are fair as trees in summer. Still the fact remains that none of these songs will live on their own merits. They are not born to immortality. Like the daisies they have their day and pass away to make room for others. It is best so. There is not room in the world for everything to be immortal, and the transient has a work of its own to do. The charm and rare beauty of the English countryside are due to the transience of its flowers and foliage and little of the evergreen is enough. We tire of the eternal. The transient songs I have quoted here have been meat and drink to our soldiers in the most terrible war ever waged. They may be poor stuff in comparison with our classic songs but a good appetite can get nourishment out of plain food and grow strong on it. For the purpose in hand these songs have been better than the classics; otherwise they would not have been chosen. There is a time and place for all things. The robin may not be compared with the nightingale but it is not the less welcome, for it sings when the nightingale is silent. Our soldiers’ songs will die, some are already dead, but they have done their work and justified their existence. They have given pleasure and strength to men as they went out to do immortal deeds. No wounded soldier, or parched traveler, thinks lightly of a cup of water because it perished in the using; and so it is with the songs our soldiers sing.