 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, reading by Kristen Hughes. Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service. Book 4, Winter, Part 1. The Somme Front, January 1915. There is an avenue of noble beaches leading to the Chateau, and in the shadow of each glimmers the pale oblong of an ambulance. We have to keep them thus concealed, for only yesterday morning a tob flew over. The beggars are rather partial to red cross-cars. One of our chaps, taking in a load of wounded, was chased and pelted the other day. The Chateau seems all spires and towers, the glorified dream of a Parisian pastry cook. On its terrace, figures and khaki are lounging. They are the volunteers, the owner-drivers of the corps, many of the men of wealth and title. Curious to see one who owns all the coal in two counties, proudly signing for his suede, or another who lives in a Fifth Avenue palace, tentatively sleeping on the straw-struined floor of a harbour. Here is a rhyme I have made of such and one. Priscilla. Jerry McMullen, the millionaire, driving a red meat-bus out there. How did he win his quadrager? Bless you, that's all old stuff. Beast of a night on the Verdun Road, Jerry stuck with a woeful load, stalled in the mud where the red lights glowed, prospect, devilish-tough. Little Priscilla, he called his car, best of our battered bunch by far, branded with many a bullet scar, yet running so sweet and true. Jerry, he loved her, knew her tricks, swore she's the beat of the best big six, and if ever I get in a deuce of a fix, Priscilla will pull me through. Looks pretty rotten right now, says he, hanged if the devil himself could see. Priscilla, it's up to you and me to show him what we can do. Seemed that Priscilla just took the word, up with a leap like a horse that spurred, on with the joy of a homing bird, swift as the wind she flew. Shellholes shoot at them out of the night, allurch to the left, a wrench to the right, hands grim gripping and teeth clenched tight, eyes that glare through the dark. Priscilla, you're doing me proud this day. Hospitals only a league away, and, honey, I'm longing to hit the hay, so hurry, old girl, but hark! Howl of a shell, harsh, sudden dread, another, another, strike me dead if the Huns ain't strafing the road ahead so the convoy can't get through. A barrage of shrap and us alone, four rush cases, you hear a moan? Fear-sold mess of blood and bone. Priscilla, what shall we do? Again it seems that Priscilla heard, with a rush and a roar her way she clears, straight at the hell of flames she steers, full at its heart of wrath. Fury of death and dust and din, havoc and horror, she's in, she's in, she's almost over, she'll win, she'll win! Woof! Crump! Right in the path. Little Priscilla skids and stops, Jerry McMullen sways and flops, bang in his map the crash he cops, shriek from the car, mon dieu! One of the blesses hears him say, just at the moment he faints away. Wrecking this isn't my lucky day, Priscilla, it's up to you. Sergeant wraps on the doctor's door, car in the court with Couché Four. Driver dead on the dashboard floor, strange how the bunch got here. No, says the doc, this chap's alive. But tell me, how could a man contrive with both arms broken a car to drive? Thunder of God it's queer. Same little blessé makes a spiel, says he, when I saw a driver reel, a strange shape leapt to the driving-wheel and sped us safe through the night. But Jerry, he says in his drawing tone, rats, why Priscilla came in on her own? Bless her, she did it alone, alone. Hanged if I know who's right, as I am sitting down to my midday meal and orderly gives me a telegram. Hill seventy-one, to Couché, send car at once. The up-tilted countryside is a checkerboard of green and gray, and except where the groves of trees rise like islands, cultivated to the last acre. But as we near the firing-line, all efforts to till the land cease, and the un-gathered beats of last year have grown to seed. Amid rank-unkempt fields, I race over a road that is pitted with obus-holes. I pass a line of guns painted like snakes and drawn by horses, dyed khaki-color. Then soldiers coming from the trenches, mud caked and ineffably weary. Then a race over a bit of road that is exposed. Then, buried in the hillside, the dressing-station. Two wounded are put into my car, from hip to heel one is swathed in bandages. The other has a great white turban on his head, with a red patch on it that spreads and spreads. They stare dullly, but make no sound. As I crank the car there is a shrill, screaming noise. About thirty yards away I hear an explosion like a mind-blast, followed by a sudden belch of cold black smoke. I stare at it in a dazed way. Then the doctor says, Don't trouble to analyze your sensations, better get off, you're only drawing their fire. Here is one of my experiences, a casualty. That boy I took in the car last night, with the body that awfully sagged away, and the lips blood-crisped and the eyes flame bright, and the poor hands folded and cold as clay. Oh, I've thought and I've thought of him all the day. For the weary old doctor says to me, He'll only last an hour or so, both of his legs below the knee, blown off by a bomb. So lad, go slow, and please remember, he doesn't know. So I tried to drive with never a jar, and there was I cursing the road like mad, when I hear a ghost of a voice from the car. Tell me, old chap, have I copped it bad? So I answers no, and he says, I'm glad. Glad, says he, for at twenty-two life so splendid, I hate to go. There's so much good that a chap might do, and I've fought from the start and I've suffered so. It would be hard to get knocked out now, you know. Forget it, says I, then I drove a while, and I passed him a cheery word or two, but he didn't answer for many a mile, so just as the hospital-hoven view says I, is there nothing that I can do? Then he opens his eyes, and he smiles at me, and he takes my hand in his trembling hold. Thank you, you're far too kind, says he. I'm awfully comfy, stay. Let's see. I fancy my blankets come unrolled. My feet, please wrap them. They're cold. They're cold. There is a city that glitters on the plain. A far off we can see its tall cathedral spire, and there we often take our wounded from the little village hospitals to the railhead. Tragic little buildings, these emergency hospitals. Town halls, churches, schools. Their carts are never empty, their surgeons never still. So every day we get our list of cases and off we go. A long line of cars swishing through the mud. Then one by one we branch off to our village hospital, puzzling out the road on our maps. We drive to there, we load up quickly. The wounded men make no moan. They lie, limp, heavily bandaged, with bare legs and arms protruding from their blankets. They do not know where they are going. They do not care. Like livestock they are labelled and numbered, and orderly brings along their battle-scarred equipment, throwing open their rifles to see that no charge remains. Sometimes they shake our hands and thank us for the drive. In the streets of the city I see French soldiers wearing the fouregère. It is a cord of green, yellow or red, and corresponds to the quadrigueur, the medal militaire, and the legion of honour. The red is the highest of all, and has been granted only to one or two regiments. This incident was told to me by a man who saw it. The blood-red fouregère. What was the blackest sight to me of all that campaign? A naked woman tied to a tree, with jagged holes where her breast should be, rotting there in the rain. On we pressed to the battle-fray, dogged and dour and spent. Suddenly I heard my captain say, Voila! Couture has passed this way, and left us a monument. So I looked, and I saw a colonel there, and his grand-head snowed with the years, unto the beat of the rain was bare, and, oh, there was grief in his frozen stare, and his cheeks were stung with tears. Then at last he turned from the woeful tree, and his face like stone was set. Go, march the regiment past, said he, that every father and son may see, and none may ever forget. Oh, the crimson strands of her hair downpoured over her breasts of woe, and our grim old colonel leaned on his sword, and the men filed past with their rifles lowered, solemn and sad and slow. But I'll never forget till the day I die, as I stood in the driving rain, and the jaded columns of men slouched by, how amazement leapt into every eye, then fury and grief and pain. And some would like madmen stand aghast, with their hands up clenched to the sky, and some would cross themselves as they passed, and some would curse in a scalding blast, and some like children cry. Ye some would be sobbing, and some would pray, and some hurl hateful names. But the best had never a word to say, they turned their twitching faces away, and their eyes were like hot flames. They passed, then down on his bended knee the colonel dropped to the dead. Poor martyr daughter of France, said he, oh dearly dearly avenged you'll be, or ever a day be sped. Now they hold that we are the best of the best, and each of our men may wear like a gash of crimson across his chest, as one fierce proved in the battle test, the blood-red forager. For each as he leaps to the top can see, like an etching of blood on his brain, a wife or a mother lash to a tree, with two black holes where her breast should be, left to rot in the rain. So we fight like fiends, and of us they say that we neither yield nor spare. Oh, we have the bitterest debt to pay, have we paid it? Look how we wear today, like a trophy, gallant and proud and gay, a blood-red forager. It is often weary waiting at the little post to secure. Some of us play solitaire, some read a six-penny, some doze or try to talk in bad French to the poilou, around us is discomfort, dirt and drama. For my part, I pass the time only too quickly, trying to put in diverse the incidents and ideas that come my way. In this way I hope to collect quite a lot of stuff, which may someday see itself in print. Here is one of my efforts. Jim Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim? Bless you, there was the likely lad, supple and straight and long of limb, clean as a whistle and just as glad. Always laughing, wasn't he, Dad? Joy, pure joy to the heart of him, and oh, but the soothering ways he had Jim, our Jim. But I see him best as a tiny tot, a bonny babe, though it's me that speaks, laughing there in his little cot, with his sunny hair and his apple cheeks, and my, but the blue, blue eyes he'd got, and just where his wee mouth dimpled dim, such a fairy mark like a beauty spot, that was Jim. Oh, the war, the war, how my eyes were wet, but he says, don't be sorrowing, Mother dear, you never knew me to fail you yet, and I'll be back in a year, a year. It was at Mons, he fell, in the first attack, for so they said, and their eyes were dim, but I laughed in their faces, he'll come back, will my Jim. Now we'd been wedded for twenty year, and Jim was the only one we'd had, so then I whispered in Father's ear, he wouldn't believe me, would you, Dad? There, I must hurry, hear him cry, my new little baby, see, that's him. What are we going to call him? Why, Jim, just Jim. Jim, for look at him laughing there, in the same old way in his tiny cart, with his rosy cheeks and his sunny hair, and look, just look, his beauty spot in the self-same place. Oh, I can't explain, and of course you'll think it's a Mother's whim, but I know, I know it's my boy again, same wee Jim. Just come back as he said he would, come with his love and his heart of glee. Oh, I cried, and I cried, but the Lord was good, from the shadow of death he set Jim free, so I'll have him all over again, you see. Can you wonder my Mother's heart's a brim? Oh, how happy we're going to be! Aren't we, Jim? End of Book 4, Winter, Part 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Kristen Hughes. Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service. Book 4, Winter, Part 2. In Picardie, January, 1915. The road lies amid a malevolent heath. It seems to lead us right into the clutches of the enemy. For the starshells that at first were bursting overhead, gradually encircle us. The fields are strangely sinister. The splintered trees are like giant toothpicks. There is a lisping in a twanging overhead, as we wait at the door of the dugout that serves as a first aid dressing station. I gaze up into that mysterious dark, so alive with musical vibrations. Then a small shadow detaches itself from the greater shadow, and a gray-bearded sentry says to me, you'd better come in out of the bullets. So I keep undercover, and presently they bring my load. Two men drip with sweat as they carry their comrade. I can see that they are all three belong to the foreign legion. I think for a moment of Saxon Dane. How strange if some day I should carry him. Half-fearfully I look at my passenger, but he is a black man. Such things only happen in fiction. This is what I have written of the finest troops in the Army of France. Kelly of the Legion Now Kelly was no fighter. He loved his pipe and glass. An easy-going blighter who lived in Montparnasse. But mid the tavern-tattle he heard some guineas say, when France goes forth to battle, the Legion leads the way. The scourings of creation, of every sin and station, the men who've known damnation are picked to lead the way. Well, Kelly joined the Legion. They marched him day and night. They rushed him to the region where largest loomed the fight. Behold your mighty mission, your destiny, said they. By glorious tradition the Legion leads the way. With tattered banners flying, with trail of dead and dying, on, on all hell defying, the Legion sweeps the way. With grim hard-bitten faces, with jests of savage mirth, they swept into their places, the men of Ironworth. Their blooded steel was flashing. They swung to face the fray. Then rushing, roaring, crashing, the Legion cleared the way. The trail they blazed was gory. Few lived to tell the story. Through death they plunged to glory. But, oh, they cleared the way. Now Kelly lay adying, and dimly saw advance with split new banners flying, the fantasons of France. Then up amid the melee he rose from where he lay. Come on, me boys, says Kelly, the Legion leads the way. Aye, while they faltered doubting, such flames of doom were spouting. He caught them, thrilled them, shouting, the Legion leads the way. They saw him slip and stumble, then stagger on once more. They marked him trip and tumble, a mass of grime and gore. They watched him blindly crawling amid hell's own affray, and calling, calling, calling, the Legion leads the way. And even while they wondered, the battle-rack was sundered, to victory they thundered, but Kelly led the way. Still Kelly kept going, berserker like he ran, his eyes with fury glowing, a lion of a man, his rifle madly swinging, his soul thirst to slay, his slogan ringing, ringing, the Legion leads the way. Till in a pit death-baited, where huns with maxims waited, he plunged, and there blood sated, to death he stabbed his way. Now Kelly was a fellow who simply loathed a fight. He loved a tavern mellow, hot grog, and pipe a light. I'm sure the show appalled him, and yet without dismay, when death and duty called him, he up and led the way. So in Valhalla drinking, if heroes meek and shrinking are suffered there, I'm thinking, tis Kelly leads the way. We have just had one of our men killed, a young sculptor of immense promise. When one thinks of all the fine work he might have accomplished, it seems a shame. But after all, tomorrow, it may be the turn of any of us. If it should be mine, my chief regret will be for work undone. Ah, I often think of how I will go back to the quarter and take up the old life again, how sweet it will all seem. But first I must earn the right, and if ever I do go back, how I will find Bohemia changed, missing how many a face. It was in thinking of our lost comrade I wrote the following. The Three Tommies That Barrett, the painter of pictures, what feeling for colour he had, and fanning the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad, and Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad, to hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart, of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his part, a building, a palace of beauty, to the wonder and glory of art. John's Barrett, the painter of pictures, young carcass that rots on the wire, his hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire, his eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous maya. Poor fanning, he thought to discover a symphonic note of a shell. There are bits of him broken and bloody to show you the place where he fell. I've reasoned to fear on his exquisite ear the rats have been banqueting well. And speaking of Harley, the writer, I fancy I looked on him last, sprawling and staring and writhing in the roar of the battle-blast, then a mad gun-team crashed over, and scattered his brains as it passed. Oh, Harley and Fanning and Barrett, they were bloody good mates of mine. Their bodies are empty bottles. Death has guzzled the wine. What's left of them's filth and corruption? Where is the fire divine? I'll tell you, at night in the trenches, as I watch and I do my part, the radiant spirits I'm seeing, high-heart revealing to heart, and their building a peerless palace to the splendour and triumph of art. Yet alas for the fame of Barrett, the glory he might have trailed, and alas for the name of Fanning, a star that beaconed and paled. Poor Harley, obscure and forgotten, well, who shall say that they failed? No, each did a something grander than ever he dreamed to do, and as for the work unfinished, all will be paid their due. The broken ends will be fitted, the balance struck will be true. So, painters and players and penmen, I tell you, do as you please. Let your fame out-leap on the trumpets, you'll never rise up to these, to three grim and gory tommies, down, down on your bended knees. Daventry, the sculptor, is buried in a little graveyard near one of our posts. Just now our section of the line is quiet, so I often go and sit there, stretching myself on a flat stone I dream for hours. Silence and solitude, how good the piece of it all seems. Around me the grasses weave a pattern and half-hide the hundreds of little wooden crosses. Here is one with a single name, Aubrey. Who was Aubrey, I wonder? Then another, to our beloved comrade. Then one which has attached to it in the cheapest of little frames, the crude watercolor dob of a child, three purple flowers standing in a yellow vase. Below it, painfully printed, I read, to my darling papa, thy little Odette. And beyond the crosses many fresh graves have been dug, with hungry open mouths they wait. Even now I can hear the guns that are going to feed them. Soon there will be more crosses and more and more, then they will cease and wives and mothers will come here to weep. Ah! Peace so precious must be bought with blood and tears. Let us honour and bless the men who pay and envy them the manner of their dying, for not all the jewelled orders on the breasts of the living can vie in glory with the little wooden cross the humblest of these has won. The twajax says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska to Hickey McCriman for a sky. That's whitter it must about feckton. It makes ye, said, devilish dry. Not just take a keek at yon firmhouse, them Germans abhound in saffine. We'll think o' it down in the duny there's bottles and bottles o' wine. A hell's fairly belching o' the honour. But, o' lad, I'm atlant to try. If its post shall be with ye whatever, says Hickey McCriman for a sky. Says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska with price for a funeral wreath. We're dodgin' a kinds of destruction and just by the skin o'er teeth. Here spread your sohut on your belly and slither along in the gloar. Confound ye a big heelin' devil. You don't realise there's a war. Ye think that you're back in Dunfagen and heard in the wee bits of chi. She'll never drink wine in Dunfagen, says Hickey McCriman for a sky. Says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska thank goodness the firmhouse at last. There's no muckle left but the cellar and even that's vanishing fast. Look out, there's a corpse o' a woman. Ser Mangleton did by her lane. Quick, strike a match. What did I tell ye? I hail Bonnie Box a champagne. Just knock the heat off o' a bottle. Hold on, man, I'm here in the cry. She'll think it's a wean that was grittin', says Hickey McCriman for a sky. Says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska my conscience I'm hanged but you're it. It's you know the waifs o' the war-field, a sobbing and shakin' with fricked. Wish, no dear, we're no going to hurt ye. We're takin' ye home, me we do. We've got to get back with her, Hickey, we're thirsty within o' Kefu. We'll no touch a drape o' that liquor. That's hard, man, ye cannot deny. It's the last thing she'll think o' denyin', says Hickey McCriman for a sky. Says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska if I should get struck further ere, ye'll teck and ye'll shield the wee lassie and rin for the lines like a deer. God, whist that the Breen Joe bullet. I'm thinkin' it's crack o' my spine. I'm dune o' my knees in the glober. I'm fearin' old man, I've got mine. Here quick, pit yer arms run the lassie. No rin lad, good luck and good-bye. Hoots, man, it's yer bath she'll be takin', says Hickey McCriman for a sky. Says Corporal Muckl for a rannock. Is that no a picture to frame? To a ser-wounded chocks we're lassie, just like my wee genie at home. I'll prud ye a bath, my brave heroes. We'll gee ye a medal, I think. Says Baldi McGrigor Friglaska I'd rather ye gave me a drink. I'll no speak for private McCriman. But, oh, man, I'm perish and dry. She'll wish that Loch Leifin was woosky. Says Hickey McCriman for a sky. End of book four, winter, part two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Kristen Hughes. Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service. Book four, winter, part three. Near Albert, February, 1915. Over the spine of the ridge, a horned moon of reddish hue peers through the splintered hag-like trees. Where the trenches are, rockets are rising, green and red. I hear the coughing of the maxims, the peevish nagging of the rifles, the boom of a heavy, and the hollow sound of its exploding shell. Running the car into the shadow of a ruined house, I try to sleep. But a battery starts to blaze away close by, and the flame lights up my shelter. Near me some soldiers are in deep slumber. One stirs in his sleep as a big rat runs over him. And I know by experience that when one is sleeping, a rat feels as heavy as a sheep. But how can one possibly sleep? Out there in the dark there is the wild tattoo of a thousand rifles, and hark, that dull roar is the explosion of a mine. There, the purring of rapid-fire-ers. Desperate things are doing. There will be lots of work for me before this night is over. What a cursed place! As I cannot sleep, I think of a story I heard today. It is of a Canadian colonel, and in my mind I shape it like this. His boys. I'm going, Billy Old Fellow. Hist lad, don't make any noise. There's boshes to beat all creation, the pitch of a balm away. I've fixed the note to your collar. You've got to get back to my boys. You've got to get back to warn them before it's the break of day. The order came to go forward, to a trench-line traced on the map. I knew the brass hats had blundered. I knew when I told them so. I knew if I did as they ordered I would tumble into a trap. And I tried to explain. But the answer came like a pistol. Go! Then I thought of the boys I commanded. I always called them my boys. The men of my own recruiting. The lads of my countryside. Tested in many a battle I knew their sorrows and joys. And I loved them all like a father, with more than a father's pride. To march my boys to a shambles as soon as the dawn of day, to see them helplessly slaughtered, if all that I guessed was true. My boys that trusted me blindly. I thought and I tried to pray. And then I arose and I muttered. It's either them or it's you. I rose and I donned my raincoat. I buckled my helmet tight. I remember you watched me, Billy, as I took my cane in my hand. I vaulted over the sandbags into the pitchy night, into the pitted valley that served us as no man's land. I strode out over the hollow of hate and havoc and death. From the heights the guns were angry with a vengeful snarling of steel. And once in a moment of stillness I heard hard panting breath and I turned. It was you old rascal following hard on my heel. I fancy I cursed you, Billy, but not so much as I ought. And so we went forward together till I came to the valley rim and then a star shell sputtered. It was even worse than I thought for the trench they told me to move in was packed with bosh to the brim. They saw me too and they got me. They peppered me till I fell. And there I scribbled my message with my life-blood ebbing away. Now, Billy, you fat old duffer, you've got to get back like hell and get them to cancel that order before it's the dawn of day. Billy, old boy, I love you. I kiss your shiny black nose. Now, home there, hurry, you devil, or I'll cut you to ribbons, see? Poor brute, he's off and I'm dying. I go as a soldier goes. I'm happy. My boys, God bless them. It had to be them or me. Ah, I never was intended for a job like this. I realize it more and more every day, but I will stick it out till I break down. To be nervous, over-imaginative, terribly sensitive to suffering is a poor equipment for the man who starts out to drive wounded on the battlefield. I am haunted by the thought that my car may break down when I have a load of wounded, once indeed it did, and a man died while I waited for help. Now, I never look at what has given me. It might unnerve me. I have been at it for over six months without rest. When an attack has been going on I have worked day and night until as I drove I wanted to fall asleep at the wheel. The winter has been trying. There is rain one day frost the next, mud up to the axels. Once sleeps and lousy barns are dripping dugouts, cold, hungered dirt. For them all singly and together my only consolation is that the war must soon be over and that I will have helped. When I have time and I'm not too tired I comfort myself with scribbling. The booby-trap I'm crawling out in the man-goals to bury what's left to Joe, Joe, my pal, and a gooden. God, how it rains and rains! I'm sick of seeing him lying like I eat boar-ful and so I'm crawling out in the beat-field to bury his last remains. He might have been making munitions. He had no need to go and I'll tell him straight but he answers taint no use chewing the fat I've got to be doing me duty with the rest of the boys. And so he ons him he ons blob on the beat-field what I'm trying so hard to get at. There was five of us lads from the brickyard Henry was gassed at Bapolm. Sydney was drowned in a crater. Herbert was avved by a shell. Joe was the pick of the posy. Might have been safely at home. Only son of his mother. Her a-witter as well. She used to sell bobbins and buttons at a place near the Waterloo Road. A little old bent-over lidey with glasses and silvery air. Must tell her I planted him nicely. Cheer her up like. Well I'm blowed that bullet near catched me a biffa. I'll see the old girl if I'm spared. She'll take it to heart poor old lidey for he was a rope and a joy. His dad used to drink like a knot-hole. She kept the home going she did. She pinched and she scraped for his schooling. He was such a finance and boy. Af Flanders seems packed on me panties. I'll see the old girl if I'm spared. She'll take it to heart poor old lidey. For he was a rope and a joy. His dad used to drink like a knot-hole. Af Flanders seems packed on me panties. He's handsome no longer, poor kid. This bit of a board that I'm packing and dragging round in the mire. I was tickled to death when I found it. Says I, ears a nice little glow. I was chilled and wet through to the Mara. So I started to make me a fire. And then I says, No, ear go blimey. It'll do for a cross for Joe. Well here he is. God, how one changes. A lion's six weeks in the Rhine. Joe, me old pal. Oh, I'm sorry. So help me. I wish I could pray. And now I had best get a dig in his grave. It seems more like a drain. And I hopes that the boshes won't get me till I get some safe planted away. As he touches the body there is a tremendous explosion. He falls back, shattered. I'm sorry. He falls back, shattered. A booby trap. Or to a known it. If that's not a bastardly trick. Well, one thing. I won't be long going. God, I'm a hell of a sight. I wish I'd died fighting and killing. That's what is makes me sick. Ah, Joe will be pushing up dizzies. Together, old Jummy. Good night. Today I heard that McBean had been killed in Belgium. I believe he turned out a wonderful soldier. Saxon Dane too has been missing for two months. We know what that means. It is odd how one gets callous to death. A medieval callousness. When we hear that the best of our friends have gone west we have a moment of the keenest regret. But how soon again we find the heart to laugh. The saddest part of loss I think is that one so soon gets over it. Is it that we fail to realise it all? Is it that it seems a strange and hideous dream from which we will awake and rub our eyes? Oh, how bitter I feel as the days go by. It is creeping more and more into my verse. Read this. Bonehead Bill I wonder who and what he was. That one I got so slick. I couldn't see his face because the night was hideous thick. I just made out among the black a blinking wedge of white. Then Biff, I guess I got him. Crack! The man I killed last night. I wonder if accounting me some wench will go unwed. An eeps alive will never be because he is stark and dead. Or if his missus damns the war and buys some candlelight. Toedded kids are praying for the fritz I copped last night. I wonder, Struth, I wonder why I had that awful dream. I saw up in the giddy sky the gates of God a gleam. I saw the gates of heaven shine with everlast in light. And then I knew that I'd got mine, as he got his last night. I bang beyond the brood and mists where spun the mother stars. I ammoured with me bloody fists upon them golden bars. I ammoured till a devil's doubt there froze me with a fright. To think what God would say about the bloke I corpse last night. I ushed. I wilted with despair. When like a rosy flame a seasoned angel stand in there who calls me by my name. He had such soft, such shiny eyes. He held his hand and smiled. And through the gates a paradise he led me like a child. He led me by them golden palms where em's that jeweled street. And seraphs was a singing psalms. You've no idea how sweet. With cherub's crowd and close around then peas is in a pod. He led me to a shiny mound where beams the throne of God. And then I hears God's weary voice. Bill egg and I have no fear. Stand up and glory and rejoice for him who led you here. And in a nip I seems to see. I like a flash of light. My angel pal I knew to be the chap I plugged last night. Now I don't claim to understand. They calls me bone-ed Bill. They shoves a rifle in me and and shows me how to kill. Me jobs to risk me life and limb. But be it wrong or right. This cross I'm making. It's for him. The cove I croaked last night. End of book four. Winter. Part three. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Christian Hughes Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service Book four. Winter. Part four. A lapse of time and a word of explanation. The American Hospital. New E. January, 1919. Four years have passed and it is winter again. Much has happened. When I last wrote on the Psalm in 1915 I was sickening with typhoid fever. All that spring I was in hospital. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently recovered to take part in the Champagne battle in the fall of that year and to carry on during the following winter. It was at Verdun I got my first wound. In the spring of 1917 I again served with my corps but on the entry of the United States into the war I joined the army of my country. In the Argonne I had my left arm shot away. As far as time and health permitted I kept a record of these years and also wrote much verse. All this however has disappeared under circumstances into which there is no need to enter here. The loss was a cruel one almost more so than that of my arm for I have neither the heart nor the power to rewrite this material. And now in default of something better I have bundled together this manuscript and have added to it a few more verses written in hospitals. Let it represent me if I can find a publisher for it. Tom Muir If not, I will print it at my own cost and anyone who cares for a copy can write to me. Stephen Poor Twelve Biss Rue de Petit Moineau Paris Michael There's something in your face Michael I've seen it all the day There's something queer that wasn't there when first you went away. It's just the army life mother left and right that puts the stiffening in your spine and locks your jaw up tight. There's something in your eyes Michael and how they stare and stare You're looking at me now me boy as if I wasn't there It's just the things I've seen mother the sights that come and come a bit of broken bloody pulp that used to be a chum There's something on your heart Michael that makes you wake at night and often when I hear you moan I tremble in me fright It's just a man I killed mother a mother's son like me It seems he's always haunting me he'll never let me be But maybe he was bad Michael Maybe it was right to kill the enemy you hate in fair and honest fight I did not hate it all mother he never did me harm I think he was a lad like me who worked upon a farm And what's it all about Michael Why did you have to go quiet peaceful lad like you and we were happy so It's them that's up above mother It's them that sits in rules We've got to fight the wars they make It's us as are the fools And what will be the end Michael It's us as are the fools It's us as are the fools And what will be the end Michael And what's the use I say of fighting if whoever wins it's us that's got to pay Oh it will be the end mother when lads like him and me that's sweat to feed the ones above decide that we'll be free And when will that day come Michael and when will fight and cease and simple folks may till their soil and live and love in peace It's coming soon and soon mother It's nearer every day when only men who work and sweat will have a word to say when all who earn their honest bread in every land and soil will claim the brotherhood of man the comradeship of toil when we the workers all demand what are we fighting for then then we'll end that stupid crime that devil's madness war the wife tell Annie I'll be home in time to help her with a Christmas tree that's what he wrote and Hark the chime of Christmas bells and where is he and how the house is dark and sad and Annie sobbing on my knee the page beside the candle flame with cruel hype was overfilled I read and read until a name leapt at me and my heart was stilled my eye crept up the column up until its hateful heading killed and there was Annie on the stair and will he not belong she said her eyes were bright and in her hair she twined a bit of rib and red and every step was daddy's sure till tired out she went to bed and there alone I sat so still with staring eyes that did not see the room was desolate and chill and desolate the heart of me outside I heard the news boys shrill another glorious victory a victory ah what care I a thousand victories are vain here in my ruined home I cry from out my black despair and pain I'd rather rather damn defeat and have my man with me again they talk to us of pride and power of empire vast beyond the sea as here beside my hearth I cower what mean such words is these to me oh will they lift the clouds that lower or light my load in years to be what matters it to us poor folk who win or lose it's we who pay oh I would laugh beneath the yoke if I had him at home today once home before once country comes I so a million women say hush Annie dear don't sorrow so can I tell her see will light with tiny star of purest glow each little candle pink and white they make mistakes I'll tell myself I did not read that name right come dearest one come let us pray beside our gleaming Christmas tree just fold your little hands and say these words so softly after me God pity mothers in distress and little children fatherless God pity mothers in distress and little children fatherless what's that a step upon the stair a shout the door thrown open wide my hero and my man is there and Annie's leaping by his side the room reels round I faint I fall oh God thy world is glorified victory stuff what do you think what do you think as the roaring crowds go by as the banners flare and the brasses blare and the great guns rend the sky as the women laughed like they'd all gone mad and the champagne glasses clink oh you're gripping me hand so tightly lad wondering what do you think do you think of the boys we used to know and how they'd have topped the fun Tom and Charlie and Jack and Joe gone now everyone how they'd have cheered as the joy bells chime and how they grabbed each girl for a kiss and now they're rotten and flanders slime and they gave their lives for this or else do you think of the many a time we wished we too was dead up to our knees in the freezing grime with the fires of hell overhead when the youth and the strength of us sapped away and we cursed in our rage and pain and yet we haven't a word to say we're glad we'd do it again I'm scared that they pity us come old boy let's leave them their flags and their fuss we'd surely be hated to spoil their joy with the sight of such wrecks as us let's slip away quietly you and me and we'll talk of our chums out there you with your eyes that'll never see me that's wheeled in a chair was it you hello young jones with your ties so gay and your pen behind your ear will you mark my check in the usual way for I'm overdrawn I fear then you look at me in a bland manner as you turn your ledger's leaves and you hand it back with a soft white hand and the air of a man who grieves was it you young jones was it you I saw and I think I see you yet with a live bomb gripped in your grimy paw and your face to the parapet with your lips a snarl and your eyes gone mad thrilled you through oh I look at you now and I think my lad was it you young jones was it you hello young smith with your well fed look and your coat of dapper fit will you recommend me a decent book with nothing of war in it then you smile as you polish a fingernail and your eyes serenely roam and you suavely hand me a thrilling rare man who stayed at home was it you young smith was it you I saw in the battle storm and stench with a roar of rage and a wound red raw leap into the reeking trench as you stood like a fiend on the firing shelf and you stabbed and hacked and slew oh I look at you and I ask myself was it you young smith was it you hello old brown with your ruddy cheek and your tummies rounded swell your gardens looking jolly chic and your kiddies awfully well then you beam at me in your cheery way as you swing your water can and you mop your brow and you blithely say what about gullfold man was it you old brown was it you I saw like a bulldog stick to your gun a cursing devil of fang and claw when the rest were on the run your eyes aflame with the battle hate as you sit in the family pew and I see you rising to pass the plate I ask old brown was it you was it me and you was it you and me is that grammar or is it not who groveled in filth and misery who gloried and groused and fought which is the wrong and which is the right which is the false and the true the man of peace or the man of fight which is the me and the you end of book 4 winter part 4 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Kristen Hughes Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service book 4 winter part 5 Le Grand Mutile I saw three wounded of the war and the first had lost his eyes and the second went on wheels and had no legs below the thighs and the face of the third was featureless and his mouth ran corner wise so I made a rhyme about each one and this is how my fancies run the sightless man out of the night a crash, a roar, a rampart of light a flame that leaped like a lash searing forever my sight out of the night of flash then oh, forever the night here in the dark I sit I who so loved the sun supple and strong and fit in the dark till my days be done ah, that's the hell of it stalwart and 21 Maria's stanch and true willing to be my wife swears she has eyes for two ah, but it's long his life what is a lad to do with his heart and his brain at strife there now my pipe is out out of the night I grope and I grope about well it is nearly night sleep may resolve my doubt help me to reason right he sleeps and dreams I heard them whispering there by the bed oh, but the ears of the blind are quick every treacherous word they said was a stab of pain and my heart turned sick then lip met lip and they looked at me sitting bent by the fallen fire and they laughed to think that I couldn't see but I felt the flame of their heart desire he's helping Maria to work the farm a dashing, upstanding chap they say and look at me with my flabby arm and the fat of sloth and my face of clay look at me as I sit and sit by the side of a fire that seldom lit and weary the live long day when everyone else is out on the field sowing the seed for a golden yield or tossing around the pneumon hay oh, the shimmering wheat that frets the sky gold of plenty and blue of hope I'm seeing it all with an inner eye as out of the door I grope and grope and I hear my wife and her lover there whispering, whispering round the rick mocking me and my sightless stare as I fumble and stumble everywhere slapping and tapping with my stick old and weary at thirty-one heart-sick wishing it all was done oh, I'll tap my way round to the buyer and I'll hear the cows as they chew their hay there at least there is none to tire there at least I am not in the way and they'll look at me with their velvet eyes and I'll stroke their flank and they'll look at me with their velvet eyes and I'll stroke their flanks with my woman's hand and they'll answer to me with soft replies and somehow I fancy they'll understand and the horses too they know me well I'm sure that they pity my wretched lot and the big fat ram with the jingling bell oh, the beasts are the only friends I've got and my old dog too he loves me more I think than ever he did before thank God for the beasts that are all so kind that know and pity the helpless blind ha! they're coming, the loving pair my hands are shake as my pipe I fill what if I steal on them unaware with a reaping hook to kill, to kill I'll do it they're there in the mow of hay I hear them saying he's out of the way how they're kissing and whispering closer I creep I crouch, I spring he wakes ugh, what a horrible dream I've had and it isn't real I'm glad I'm glad Maria's good and Maria's true but now I know what it's best to do I'll sell the farm and I'll seek my kind I'll live apart with my fellow blind and we'll eat and drink and we'll laugh and joke and we'll talk of our battles and smoke and smoke the brushes of bristles will make for sale while one of us reads a book of Braille and there will be music and dancing too and we'll seek to fashion our lives anew and we'll walk the highways hand in hand the brotherhood of the sightless band till the years at last shall bring respite and our night is lost in the greater night the legless man the dark side my mind goes back to fuming wood and how we stuck it out eight days of hunger thirst and cold mowed down by steel and flame waste deep in mud and mad with woe with dead men all about we fought like fiends and never came eight days and nights they rolled on us in battle frenzied mass de bouleaux we hurled them back by God they did not pass they pinned two medals on my chest a yellow and brown and lovely ladies made me blush such pretty words they said I felt a cheerful man almost until my eyes went down and there I saw the blankets how they sagged upon my bed and then again I drank the cup of sorrow to the dregs oh they can keep their medals if they give me back my legs I think of how I used to run and leap and kick the ball and ride and dance and climb the hills and frolic in the sea and all the thousand things that now I'll never do at all mon dieu there's nothing left in life that comes to me and as the nurses lift me up and strap me in my chair if they would chloroform me off I feel I wouldn't care ah yes we're heroes all today they point to us with pride today their hearts go out to us the tears are in their eyes but wait a bit tomorrow they will blindly look aside no more they'll talk of what they owe the dues of sacrifice one hates to be reminded of an everlasting debt it's all in human nature ah the world will soon forget my mind goes back to where I lay wound rotted on the plane and ate the muddy mangled roots and drank the drops of dew and dragged myself for miles and miles when every move was pain and over me the carrion crows were retching as they flew oh air I closed my eyes and stuck my rifle in the air I wished that those who picked me up had passed and left me there the bright side oh one gets used to everything I hum a merry song and up the street and round the square I wheel my chair along for look you how my chest is sound my arms are strong oh one gets used to anything it's awkward at the first and jolting all the cobbles gives a man a grievous thirst but of all ills that one must bear that's surely not the worst for there's a cafe open wide and there they set me up and there I smoke my caparal above my cider cup and play manil a while before I hurry home to sup at home the wife is waiting me with smiles and pigeon pie and little Gigi claps her hands with laughter loud and high and if there's cause to growl I fail to see the reason why and all the evening by the lamp I read some tale of crime or play my old accordion with Marie keeping time until we hear the hour of ten from out the steeple chime then in the morning bright and soon no moment do I lose within my little cobbler's shop to gain the silver sous good luck one has no need of legs to make a pair of shoes and every Sunday oh it's then I'm the happy man they wheel me to the riverside and there with rod and can I sit and fish and catch a dish of goujant for the pan I one gets used to everything and doesn't seem to mind maybe I'm happier than most of my two-legged kind for look you at the darkest cloud low how it's silver lined the faceless man I'm dead officially I'm dead their hope is past how long I stood as missing now at last I'm dead look in my face no likeness can you see no tiny trace of him they knew as me how terrible the change even my eyes are strange so keyed are they to pain that if I chance to meet my mother in the street she'd look at me in vain when she got home I think she'd say I saw the saddest sight today a poilu with no face at all far better in the fight to fall than go through life like that I think poor fellow how he made me shrink no face just eyes that seem to stare at me with anguish and despair this ghastly war I'm almost cheered to think my son who disappeared my boy so handsome and so gay might have come home like him today I'm dead I think it's better to be dead and look at you with dread and when you know you're coming home again will only give the ones who love you pain who can help but shrink one cannot blame they see the hideous husk not the flame of sacrifice and love that burns within while souls of satyrs riddled through with sin have bodies fair and excellent to see mon Dieu how different we all would be our flesh was ordained to express our spirit's beauty or its ugliness oh you who look at me with fear today and shrink despite yourselves and turn away it was for you I suffered woe accursed for you I braved red battle at its worst for you I fought and bled and maimed and slew for you for you for you I faced hell fury the reeking horror of it all I knew I flung myself into the furnace there I faced the flame that scorched me with its glare I drank unto the dregs the devils brew look at me now for you and you and you I'm thinking of the time we said goodbye we took our dinner in Duval's that night just little Jacqueline Lucette and I we tried our very utmost to be bright we laughed and yet our eyes they weren't gay I sought all kinds of cheering things to say don't grieve I told them soon the time will pass my next permission will come quickly round we'll all meet at the Guér de Montparnasse three times I've come already safe and sound but oh I thought it's harder every time after a home that seems like paradise to go back to the vermin and the slime the weariness the want the sacrifice pray God I said the war may soon be done but no oh never never till we've won then to the station quietly we walked I had my rifle in my haversack my heavy boots my blankets on my back and though it hurt us cheerfully we talked we chatted bravely at the platform gate I watched the clock my train must go at eight one minute to the hour we kissed goodbye then oh they both broke down with piteous cry I went their way was barred they could not pass I looked back as the train began to start once more I ran with anguish through my heart and through the bars I kissed my little lass three years have gone they've waited day by day I never came I did not even write for when I saw my face was such a sight I thought that I had better stay away and so I took the name of one who died a friendless friend who perished by my side Prussian prison camps three years of hell I kept my secret oh I kept it well and now I'm free but none shall ever know they think I died out there it's better so today I passed my wife in widow's weeds I brushed her arm she did not even look so white so pinched her face my heart still bleeds and at the touch of her oh how I shook and then last night I passed the window where they sat together I could see them clear the lamp light softly gleaming on their hair and all the room so full of cozy cheer my wife was sewing while my daughter read I even saw my portrait on the wall I wanted to rush in to tell them all and then I cursed myself you're dead you're dead God how I watched them from the darkness there clutching the dripping branches of a tree peering as close as ever I might dare and sobbing sobbing oh so bitterly but no it's folly and I mustn't stay tomorrow I am going far away I'll find a ship and sail before the mast in some wild land I'll bury all the past I'll live on lonely shores and there forget or tell myself that there's never been the gay and tender courage of Lucette the little loving arms of Jacqueline a man lonely upon a lonely isle sometimes I'll look towards the north and smile to think they're happy and they both believe I died for France and that I lie at rest and for my glory's sake they've ceased to grieve and hold my memory sacred ah that's best and in that thought I'll find my joy and peace as there alone I wait the last release l'envoie we've finished up the filthy war we've won what we were fighting for or have we I don't know but anyway I have my wish I'm back upon the old boule-miche and how my heart's aglow though in my coats an empty sleeve ah do not think I ever grieve the pension for it I believe will keep me on the go so I'll be free to write and write and give my soul to sheer delight till joy is almost pain to stand aloof and watch the throng and worship youth and sing my song of faith and hope again to seek for beauty everywhere to make each day a living prayer that life may not be vain to sing of things that comfort me the joy in mother eyes the glee of little ones at play the blessed gentleness of trees of old men dreaming at their ease soft afternoons away of violets and swallow's wings of wondrous ordinary things in words of every day to rhyme of rich and rainy nights when like a legion leaped the lights and take the town with gold of taverns quaint where poets dream of cafes godly and vice that's overbold of crystal shimmer silver sheen of soft and soothing nicotine of wine that's rich and old of gutters chimney tops and stars of apple carts and motor cars the sordid and sublime of wealth and misery that meet in every great and little street of glory and of grime of all the living tide that flows from princes down to puppet shows I'll make my humble rhyme so if you like the sort of thing of which I also like to sing just give my stuff a look and if you don't, no harm is done in writing it I've had my fun so luck to you and everyone and so here ends my book 4. Winter Part 5 and End of Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service