Robert W. Service
As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea;
Cows weren’t allowed in the trenches — got out of the habit, y’see.)
As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten:
“Come on, lads!” he shouts, “and we’ll show ’em,” and he sprang to the head of the men.
Then some bally thing seemed to trip him, and he fell on his face with a slam. . . .
Oh, he died like a true British soldier, and the last word he uttered was “Damn!”
And hang it! I loved the old fellow, and something just burst in my brain,
And I cared no more for the bullets than I would for a shower of rain.
‘Twas an awf’ly funny sensation (I say, this is jolly nice tea);
I felt as if something had broken; by gad! I was suddenly free.
Free for a glorified moment, beyond regulations and laws,
Free just to wallow in slaughter, as the chap of the Stone Age was.
So on I went joyously nursing a Berserker rage of my own,
And though all my chaps were behind me, feeling most frightf’ly alone;
With the bullets and shells ding-donging, and the “krock” and the swish of the shrap;
And I found myself humming “Ben Bolt” . . . (Will you pass me the sugar, old chap?
Two lumps, please). . . . What was I saying? Oh yes, the jolly old dash;
We simply ripped through the barrage, and on with a roar and a crash.
My fellows — Old Nick couldn’t stop ’em. On, on they went with a yell,
Till they tripped on the Boches’ sand-bags, — nothing much left to tell:
A trench so tattered and battered that even a rat couldn’t live;
Some corpses tangled and mangled, wire you could pass through a sieve.
The jolly old guns had bilked us, cheated us out of our show,
And my fellows were simply yearning for a red mix-up with the foe.
So I shouted to them to follow, and on we went roaring again,
Battle-tuned and exultant, on in the leaden rain.
Then all at once a machine gun barks from a bit of a bank,
And our Major roars in a fury: “We’ve got to take it on flank.”
He was running like fire to lead us, when down like a stone he comes,
As full of “typewriter” bullets as a pudding is full of plums.
So I took his job and we got ’em. . . . By gad! we got ’em like rats;
Down in a deep shell-crater we fought like Kilkenny cats.
‘Twas pleasant just for a moment to be sheltered and out of range,
With someone you saw to go for — it made an agreeable change.
And the Boches that missed my bullets, my chaps gave a bayonet jolt,
And all the time, I remember, I whistled and hummed “Ben Bolt”.
Well, that little job was over, so hell for leather we ran,
On to the second line trenches, — that’s where the fun began.
For though we had strafed ’em like fury, there still were some Boches about,
And my fellows, teeth set and eyes glaring, like terriers routed ’em out.
Then I stumbled on one of their dug-outs, and I shouted: “Is anyone there?”
And a voice, “Yes, one; but I’m wounded,” came faint up the narrow stair;
And my man was descending before me, when sudden a cry! a shot!
(I say, this cake is delicious. You make it yourself, do you not?)
My man? Oh, they killed the poor devil; for if there was one there was ten;
So after I’d bombed ’em sufficient I went down at the head of my men,
And four tried to sneak from a bunk-hole, but we cornered the rotters all right;
I’d rather not go into details, ’twas messy that bit of the fight.
But all of it’s beastly messy; let’s talk of pleasanter things:
The skirts that the girls are wearing, ridiculous fluffy things,
So short that they show. . . . Oh, hang it! Well, if I must, I must.
We cleaned out the second trench line, bomb and bayonet thrust;
And on we went to the third one, quite calloused to crumping by now;
And some of our fellows who’d passed us were making a deuce of a row;
And my chaps — well, I just couldn’t hold ’em; (It’s strange how it is with gore;
In some ways it’s just like whiskey: if you taste it you must have more.)
Their eyes were like beacons of battle; by gad, sir! they couldn’tbe calmed,
So I headed ’em bang for the bomb-belt, racing like billy-be-damned.
Oh, it didn’t take long to arrive there, those who arrived at all;
The machine guns were certainly chronic, the shindy enough to appal.
Oh yes, I omitted to tell you, I’d wounds on the chest and the head,
And my shirt was torn to a gun-rag, and my face blood-gummy and red.
I’m thinking I looked like a madman; I fancy I felt one too,
Half naked and swinging a rifle. . . . God! what a glorious “do”.
As I sit here in old Piccadilly, sipping my afternoon tea,
I see a blind, bullet-chipped devil, and it’s hard to believe that it’s me;
I see a wild, war-damaged demon, smashing out left and right,
And humming “Ben Bolt” rather loudly, and hugely enjoying the fight.
And as for my men, may God bless ’em! I’ve loved ’em ever since then:
They fought like the shining angels; they’re the pick o’ the land, my men.
And the trench was a reeking shambles, not a Boche to be seen alive —
So I thought; but on rounding a traverse I came on a covey of five;
And four of ’em threw up their flippers, but the fifth chap, a sergeant, was game,
And though I’d a bomb and revolver he came at me just the same.
A sporty thing that, I tell you; I just couldn’t blow him to hell,
So I swung to the point of his jaw-bone, and down like a ninepin he fell.
And then when I’d brought him to reason, he wasn’t half bad, that Hun;
He bandaged my head and my short-rib as well as the Doc could have done.
So back I went with my Boches, as gay as a two-year-old colt,
And it suddenly struck me as rummy, I still was a-humming “Ben Bolt”.
And now, by Jove! how I’ve bored you. You’ve just let me babble away;
Let’s talk of the things that matter — your car or the newest play. . . .
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
You may find this and other poems here.
Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem takes us through the chaotic and surreal experience of a soldier in the trenches, offering a disjointed yet vivid portrayal of battle. The narrator, a soldier who has somehow managed to survive the horrors of war, recounts an episode of brutal fighting, shifting between moments of bloody violence and casual, almost absurd, reflections on life.
At its core, the poem reflects on the dissonance between the violence of war and the soldier’s detached, almost nonchalant attitude towards it. From the start, there’s a sense that the soldier is trying to normalize the absurdity of his circumstances, as though the sheer madness of war must be balanced by an almost manic sense of humor. For example, the narrative is punctuated with sudden shifts in focus — one moment the soldier is detailing a deadly charge, the next he’s talking about how his tea tastes. There’s an intentional absurdity to this switch between the horrors of war and the trivial pleasures of daily life, particularly the soldier’s insistent references to tea, cake, and the girls’ skirts. The poem’s tone fluctuates between the grotesque and the mundane, underscoring the soldier’s attempt to create normalcy in an otherwise chaotic environment.
The use of humor, even in the face of horrific violence, is a defining feature of the poem. The soldier’s reflections on his Colonel’s death, his disregard for the danger around him, and his flippant attitude toward the gruesome acts he’s performing, such as bombing and bayoneting, create a bizarre juxtaposition to the grim reality of war. The deadpan recounting of the Colonel’s fall, followed by his casual dismissal of bullets as “nothing much” and his sudden embrace of a “Berserker rage,” captures the soldier’s attempt to distance himself emotionally from the war. These shifts in tone — between irreverence, bloodshed, and even a touch of nostalgia (“Ben Bolt”) — create a portrait of a man trying to cope with the stress and trauma of battle by reducing it to something almost cartoonish or absurd.
The recurring reference to the song “Ben Bolt” is particularly interesting in this context. It’s a song associated with nostalgia and longing, yet it’s ironically out of place in the trenches of war. The soldier hums it through moments of death and destruction, a signal that his emotional connection to his past, to simpler, happier times, is still intact, even in the madness of war. It’s almost as if the song acts as a shield, a small fragment of humanity that the soldier clings to amid the chaos. It’s a jarring but effective device that reminds us how soldiers often hang onto fragments of their old lives as a way of surviving the brutality they face.
The poem’s portrayal of violence is brutal but strangely detached. The soldier describes bloody hand-to-hand combat, the gruesome aftermath of explosions, and even the death of a fellow soldier, but there is little sense of emotional involvement. Instead, the soldier appears to be numb, finding humor or even exhilaration in the violence. The poem’s style — which oscillates between matter-of-fact descriptions and bursts of absurdity — mirrors the mental state of a soldier who has been desensitized to death, forced to process it in a way that seems almost mechanical.
At the same time, there is a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect among the soldiers, and a surprising moment of empathy for the enemy. When the soldier captures a German sergeant, he reflects on how the man, despite being the enemy, shows him compassion by tending to his wounds. This moment suggests a flicker of humanity in the midst of all the brutality, offering a brief counterpoint to the violence that pervades the rest of the poem. It’s as if the soldier is trying to find meaning or kindness, even in the most savage of circumstances.
The final lines of the poem return to the disjointed nature of the narrative. The soldier, now back in the civilian world, seems almost out of place, reflecting on the war as though it were a strange, far-off memory. He acknowledges that he’s been “babbling away” and suggests a return to normalcy by shifting the conversation to more trivial matters, like cars or theater plays. This abrupt return to the mundane highlights the surreal disconnect between the soldier’s experiences in the trenches and his life afterward.
Overall, the poem effectively captures the madness of war and the way soldiers cope with it. The juxtaposition of dark humor, absurdity, and moments of genuine humanity creates a portrait of a soldier who is both deeply scarred by his experiences and strangely detached from them. It’s an honest, if uncomfortable, portrayal of the coping mechanisms used by those in battle — humor, nostalgia, and a strange sense of detachment from the violence around them. In this way, the poem serves as a powerful reminder of the psychological toll war takes on those who fight in it, and how they are often forced to find absurdities to survive the unimaginable.