Free Voices of Silence by Vivien Noakes Page B

to hold the candle-light;
    A waterproof before the door to keep all weather-tight;
    A little shelf for bully, butter, bread, and marmalade –
    Then finished was the dug-out that Macfarlane made.
    Except the Lord do build the house there is no good or gain;
    Except the Lord keeps ward with us the watchman wakes in vain:
    So when we’d passed the threshold, and partaken of Mac’s tea,
    And chalked upon the lintel, ‘At the Back o’ Bennachie’,
    Perchance a prayer soared skyward, although no word was said –
    At least, God blessed the dug-out that Macfarlane made!
    For when the night was dark with dread, and the day was red with death,
    And the whimper of the speeding steel passed like a shuddering breath,
    And the air was thick with wingèd war, riven shard, and shrieking shell,
    And all the earth did spit and spume like the cauldron hot of Hell:
    When the heart of man might falter, and his soul be sore afraid –
    We just dived into the dug-out that Macfarlane made!
    Deep is the sleep I’ve had therein, as free from sense of harm
    As when my curly head was laid in the crook of my mother’s arm;
    My old great-coat for coverlet, curtain, and counterpane,
    While patter, patter on the roof, came the shrapnel lead like rain;
    And when a huge ‘Jack Johnson’ made us a sudden raid,
    I was dug out from the dug-out that Macfarlane made!
    If in the unseen scheme of things, as well may be, it chance
    That I bequeath my body to the soil of sunny France,
    I will not cavil though they leave me sleeping where I fell,
    With just a little wooden cross my lowly tale to tell:
    I do not ask for sepulture beneath some cypress shade –
    Just a six by two feet ‘dug-out’ by Macfarlane made.
    Joseph Lee
    Music in a Dug-out
    The hour is drowsed with things of sleep
    That round my tottering senses creep
    Like subtle wandering scents, so rare
    They might ensweeten fairies’ hair;
    And I am walking in a glade
    With gold and green and purple made
    Unearthly beautiful:
    And, oh, the air is very cool!
    I see green lawns between the trees,
    And cows and sheep upon the leas,
    And, in the distance, hills;
    And at my feet cool, mossy rills
    Empurpled with the wavering shade
    Of trees and bushes in the glade;
    And ever I rejoice
    And ever sings a voice.
    I see – but, sudden the singing ceases,
    Splintering my dream in pieces –
    I see, in waving candle light
    That cowers and flickers in a draft,
    A low-roofed den – a hole of night –
    That leaks to heaven by creaky shaft;
    A table (where the candle stands
    In bottle streaked with frozen strands
    Of tallow drippings), strewn with tins
    And cans, just tiny refuse bins
    With swelling slops of tea and jam
    And twisted greasy bits of ham;
    And belts hung round the dingy walls
    Like horses’ harness in their stalls;
    And in the corner gloom, alone –
    A dusty, silent gramophone!
    R. Watson Kerr
    Rats
    I want to write a poem, yet I find I have no theme,
    ‘Rats’ are no subject for an elegy,
    Yet they fill my waking moments, and when star-shells softly gleam,
    ’Tis the rats who spend the midnight hours with me.
    On my table in the evening they will form ‘Battalion mass’,
    They will open tins of bully with their teeth,
    And should a cake be sent me by some friend at home, alas!
    They will extricate it from its cardboard sheath.
    They are bloated, fat and cunning, and they’re marvels as to size,
    And their teeth can penetrate a sniping plate,
    I could tell you tales unnumbered, but you’d think I’m telling lies,
    Of one old, grey whiskered buck-rat and his mate.
    Just to show you, on my table lay a tin of sardines – sealed –
    With the implement to open hanging near,
    The old buck-rat espied them, to his missis loudly squealed,
    ‘Bring quickly that tin-opener, Stinky dear!’
    She fondly trotted up the pole, and brought him his desire,
    He proceeded then with all his might and main,
    He opened up that tin, and then – ’tis here you’ll dub me ‘Liar!’ –
    He closed it