Edward Dyson

Name: 'Hello, soldier!'
Author: Edward Dyson

'Hello, soldier!'

Summary

“'Hello, soldier!'”, is a work by Edward Dyson. It explores elements such as ardy, crackin and elpless.

Quotes from 'Hello, soldier!' (Edward Dyson)

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ What's calling, calling, Billy? 'Tis the rattle far away Of the cavalry at gallop and artillery in play; 'Tis the great gun's fierce concussion, and the smell of seven hells When the long ranks go to pieces in the sneezing of the shells.
But your eyes are laughing, Billy, and a ribald song you sing, While the old men sit and tell us war it is a ghastly thing, When the swift machines are busy and the grim, squat fortress nocks At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls that spatter on the rocks. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ The thing is that I do. It's mine!"
The cannon's stroke throws customs down
The black and bottomless abyss,
And quaking are the gilded crown
And palsied feet of prejudice.
The guns have killed, but it is true
They bring to life things good and new.
God grant they have awakened you!
My ears are greedy for the toast
Of confidence before our guest,
The loyal song, the manly boast
Your splendid faith to manifest.
In works of art and livelihood
Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good,"
Dread not to have it understood. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ But the thing that's got me nippy
It is jam, jam, JAM!
Druv us sour it has, 'n' dippy,
Sticky, sicky, slimy, sloppy, stummick-strafin'
jam!
Of the mud that's in the trenches
Writers make a solemn fuss;
For the vermin 'n' the stenches
Little ladies pity us ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ The paper famine leaving me no option but to print on peculiar paper, not wholly prohibitive or to defer the publication of my verses for an unknown period, the natural longing of a parent to parade his "well be- gotten" prevails. If my book is unusual and bizarre from a craftman's point of view, I plead the unusual times and extraordinary conditions. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ When the stinkin' Abdul hit us we curled
down upon a stone,
'N' we yelled for greater glory, crackin' 'ardy
on our own.
Not so Willie. He was cursin', cold ez death
'n' grey ez steel,
'N' the smallest thing that busted made the
little blighter squeal.
In the bitter day's that follered, spillin' life be-
side the sea,
We would fake a spry expression for the things
that had to be,
Always dressin' up the winder, crackin' 'ardy
though we felt
Fearful creepy in the whiskers, very cold be-
neath the belt. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Where is war's pomp and circumstance,
The gauds in which we prank it?
Germ ends for us our fine romance,
Wrapped in a dingy blanket.
We set out braggartly in mirth,
World's bravest men and tallest,
To do the mightiest thing on earth,
And here we're lying, nothing worth,
Succumbent to the smallest!
JOEY'S JOB. IN days before the trouble Jo was rated as
a slob.
He chose to sit in hourly expectation of a job.
He'd loop hisself upon a post, for seldom
friends had he,
A gift of patient waitin' his distinctif quality. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Then Hayes and Jo, in Flanders met, and very proud was Hayes To shake a townsman by the hand, and sing the hero's praise, "Oh, yes," says Jo, "I'm doin' well, 'n' yet I might do more. If I was in a hurry, mate, to finish up this war I'd lay out every Fritz on earth, but, strike me, what a yob A man would be to work himself out of a flamnin' job!" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Where that hefty little fighter, Bobby
Sable, smit the heathen,
And where Richard Coor de Lion trimmed
the Moslem good 'n' fine,
'N' he took the belt from Saladin, the
slickest Dago breathin'.
There's no plume upon me helmet, 'n' no red
cross on me chest,
'N' so fur they haven't dressed me in a
swanking load of metal;
We've no 'Oly Grail I know of, but we do
our little best
With a jamtin, 'n' a billy, 'n' a battered
ole mess kettle.
Quite a lot of guyver missin' from our brand
of chivalry;
We don't make a pert procession when
we're movin' up the forces ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ We had blown
out ever clip,
'N' 'blooed the hammunition for the little box
of tricks.
Each took a batten in his fist. Sez Billy
"Let 'er rip!"
But Son he claws his stubble. Sez—he:
"Hold a brace of ticks."
Then "Yow!" he pipes 'n' "Strewth!" he
sez, "it's bricks, you blighters,
bricks!"
There's more than 'arf a million spilt where
somethin' hit a pub;
We creeps among 'n' sorts 'em, stack afore,
'n' stack behind;
The Hun is comin' at us with his napper like
a tub—
You couldn't 'ope to miss it, pickled, par-
alysed, 'n' blind.
Sez Sonny: "Lay 'em open! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ From back iv things his guns is floppin' kegs
about the place,
'N' Privit Artie Rowe along with others iv
the force
Goes pig-rootin' inter battle, holdin' converse
with his horse.
Little Abdul's quite a fighter, 'n' he mixes it
with skill;
But the Anzacs have him snouted,, 'n', oh,
ma, he's feelin' ill.
They wake the all-fired desert, 'n' the land for
ever dead
Is alive 'n' fairly creepin', and the skies are
droppin' lead. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ The thirst of man 'as never yet bin squenched
with argument.
Bill's skull was welded all across, Jim 'ad an
eye in soak,
Sam 'obbled on a patent leg, 'n' every man
was broke;
They sang a song of "Mother" with their faces
titled up.
Says Bill-o: "'Ere's yer 'eroes, sling the
bloomin' votive cup!
We got no beer, the soup was bad-
Now oo will stand the soldier lad
The swag of honest liquor that for years he
hasn't 'ad?"
Sez I: "Respeck yer uniform! Remember
oo you are!"
They'd pinched a wicker barrer, 'arf a pram
'n' 'arf a car. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Crackin' 'ardy, stewed together, rats an'
slurry men 'n' blood.
Weepin' Willie wouldn't have it these was
pleasin' things abed,
'N' he shuddered in his shimmy if they passed
him with the dead.
When he cried about his mother, in a gentle
voice he'd tell
Them as dumb-well didn't like it they could go
to sudden 'ell.
There was nothin' sweet for Willie in a rough-
up in the wet;
But if all things scared him purple, not a thing
had stopped him yet.
If some chaps was wanted urgent special dirty
work to do
Willie went in with a shudder, but he alwiz
saw it through. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Is Artie from Molinga on his neddy, Marshal
Neigh.
We're pursuin' sundry camels turkey-trottin'
anyhow
With the carriage iv an emu 'n' the action iv
a cow,
When a sand dune busts, 'n' belches arf a
million iv the foe.
They uncork a blanky batt'ry, 'n' it's, Allah,
let her go!
We're not stayin' dinner, thank you. Lie
along yer horse 'n' yell,
While the bullets pip yer britches 'n' you
sniff the flue of Hell.
Here it is that Artie takes it good 'n' solid in
the crust,
He dives from out the saddle, 'n' is swallered
in the dust. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ He helps me under cover, 'n' he 'ands me
somethin' wet
(I've got a lick or two that leaves me feelin'
pretty sick) .
"Lor love yeh, ole John Hop," sez I, "yiv
buried me in debt."
"Don't minton ut at all," he sez, 'n' eyes
me arf-a-tick.
'N' back there in the trench I sits, 'n' trims
another brick.
'Tis all this how a month or more; then
Mollynoo sez he:
"Come aisy, Jumm, yeh loafer, little hell 'n'
all to view.
A job most illegant is on, cut out fer you 'n'
me.
The damnedest, dirtiest fighter on the
Continent is you,
Bar one, yeh gougin' thafe, 'n' that is
Sargin' Mollynoo!" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Through blinded, bleedin' Bosches, 'n' lor
love yeh, it was war!
We came peltin', headfirst, 'elpless, in a drain
among a lot
Of dirty, damned old Tommies (Gord! The
best that ever blew!)
Eight left of us, all punctured, each man
holdin' what he'd got.
Me wild, a rat hole in me lung, but in me
mauley, too,
A bull-nosed brick with whiskers where no
whiskers ever grew.
There's nothin' doin' now. I wear me blan-
kets like a toff.
The way this fat nurse pets me, strewth, it's
well to be so sick,
A-dreamin' of our contract 'n' the way we
pulled it off. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Blowin' out me pout a little, chattin' wide 'n'
big
When there's skirt around to skite to.
Say, 'oo has a better right to?
Done me bit 'n' done it well,
Got the tag iv plate to tell;
Square Gallipoli surviver,
With a touch iv Colonel's guyver.
"Sargin' Jumbo, good ole son!"
"Soldier, soldier, you're the one!"
Back again, a wounded hero, moochin' up 'n'
down,
Feelin' 'sthough I'd got a fond arf-Nelson on
the town;
Never was so gay, so 'elp me, never felt so
kind;
Fresh from 'ell a paradise ain't very hard to
find. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ I take, with knife 'n' pistol, arf a brick to line
me shirt.
We creeps a thousan' yards or so to jigger
up a gun
Which seven Huns is workin' on the Irish like
a squirt.
We gets across them, me 'n' him. I pots
the extra one;
Mick chokes his third in comfort, 'n',
be'old, the thing is done!
He stands above me, rakin' sweat from off his
gleamin' nut.
"Me dipper's leakin', Mick," sez I; "me
leg is bit in two." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ I sez; 'n' then
we had another.
Ten flasks he pours into his hat, 'n' fills it
to the brim,
'N' weeps 'n' sez his frau she will be waitin'
up for him.
We drink each other's health, 'n' know no
henmity nor fear.
I see I've got to pinch him, but he's out to
do his div. in,
'N' don't care if he don't go home till day-
light doth appear.
Sez he: "I pud you home to bed upside dot
'ouse you live in."
He shakes his finger in me eye: "Mein friendt,
you're preddy trunk!"
Then arm in arm through No Man's land we
does a social bunk.
There's Fear afoot. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Like 'arf creation's tenants shiftin' early
in the wet.
We're marchin' out, we dunno where, to meet
we dunno who;
But here we lights eventual, 'n' sighs 'n'
slips the kit,
'N', 'struth, the first to take us on is Mickie
Mollynoo!
A copper of the Port he was, when 'istory
was writ.
Sez I : "We're sent to face the foe, 'n', selp
me, this is It."
A shine John. Hop is Mollynoo. A mix-up
with the push
Is all his joy. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Where no decent bloke could show it.
'Arf a year they've botched me now;
Ev'ry scientific schemer
In the cor' has faked me prow,
Soled 'n' heeled a bloke somehow-
Gawd, the last one was a screamer.
Wirin' up me flamin' femur!
Comes a guy and pipes you square,
Gogglin' at you through his glasses,
Swings you in the barber's chair,
Tilts you this end up with care,
Lets you have a whiff of gasses
Chattin' off-hand with the lasses. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ In the ash-pit iv Gehenner, dumbly waitin'
fer the Turk.
We goes driftin' on the desert, nothin' doin',
nothin' said,
Till we get to think we're nowhere, 'n' arf
fancy we are dead,
'N' the only 'uman interest on the red hori-
zon's brim
Is Marshal Neigh's queer faney fer the lad
that straddles him.
Plain-livin's nearly, bored us stiff. The Major
calls on Rowe
To devise an entertainment. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ McCubbin threw his grub at Lea
(You know how sticky stew is) ;
They fought till neither man could see.
You talk of fight—Gorstrike me, we
Saw stacks of it at Suez!"
HELLO, SOLDIER! BACK again 'n' nothin' missin' barrin'
arf a hand,
Where an Abdul bit me, chokin' in the Holy
Land. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Should smirch theirselves by doin' this dis-
'onerable thing."
But fine old gents 'n' donahs prim
They stopped 'n' slid the beans to Jim.
You betcher life I let 'im hear just what I
though of 'im.
Nine, g.m. at St. Kilder, saw the finish of the
prowl.
Each 'ad his full-'n'-plentv, and was blowin'
in the tow'l.
As neither bloke cud stand alone, they leaned
'n' argufied
Which was the patient sufferer oo's turn it was
to ride.
Each 'eld a san'wich and a can.
Sez I: "This shouldn't 'ave began-
'Tain't conduck wot it worthy of a soldier and
a man." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ From good ole Port ker-flummox where we
didn't orter be,
All in a 'elpless hole-the Pug, Bill Carkeek,
Son, 'n' Gus,
Don, Steve, 'n' Jack, 'n' seven more, 'n', as
it 'appens, me,
With nothin' in since breakfast, 'n' a week
to go for tea.
Worked loose from Caddy's bunch, we went
it gay until we found
We'd took to 'arf the ragin' German Hempire
on our own.
Then down we went so 'umble, with our noses
in the ground,
Takin' cover in the rubble. If a German head
was shown
It was fare-the-well to Herman with a bullet
through the bone. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ She fits your case in 'arf a wink,
'N' knows how, why, 'n' where.
If you are five days gone in drink,
N' hoverin' on perdition's brink,
It is her brother there.
God how pain will take a man, and
He has spoke with her! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ The ole brown rig. There wasn't then
A prouder chicken in the pen.
Jist twenty turned, me nibs you'd know
For how I give me chest a throw,
A man among the best of men.
Me little no the touch I give,
Me chin's ez solid ez a rock,
'N' level with the Town 'All clock,
A five-inch grin across me chiv.
"Lor' love us, this is how to live,"
Sez I, 'n' felt I owned the Block.
Glad eyes was ever on the lurk,
'N' little 'earts was thumpin' warm
For nippers trainin' with the swarm
To swat ole Kaiser Bill, or work
A toe-hold on the heathen Turk. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Sez he "Struth, they're out there fightin',
trimmin' Boshes good 'n' smart,
While I'm bedded here 'n' 'elpless. It fair
breaks a feller's 'eart."
But he came again last Tuesday '-n' we go it
in a breath—
"London's big 'n' black 'n' noisy. It would
scare a bloke to death." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ Sez he: "Bleed there in comfort, I'm for
bringin' help, ye scut."
He's back in twenty minutes, with a dillied
German crew.
"Three'll carry in the gun," sez he, "the
rest will carry you."
I dunno how he got 'em, but he made them
barrer me.
They lugged the gun before him, 'n' he
yarded them like geese.
Then Mickie s'lutes the Major. "They're in
custody," sez he,
"Fer conduc' calculated to provoke a breach
iv peace,
A-tearin' iv me uniform, 'n' 'saultin' the
po-lice."
Then down he dumped. His wounds would
make a 'arf a column list. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ She was 'ookin' up to spike the stars, or rootin'
in the wave,
An' me liver turned a hand spring with each
buck the beggar gave.
Then we pulls a sick 'n' silly smile 'n' tips a
saucy lid,
Crackin' hardy. Willie didn't. Willie
snivelled like a kid. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ No land from lowliness and dearth
Has won to eminence on earth
That was not conscious of its worth.
CONTENTS AUSTRALIA BILLY KHAKI AS THE TROOPS WENT THROUGH MARSHAL NEIGH V.C. IN HOSPITAL SISTER ANN BRICKS MUD MICKIE MOLLYNOO JAM WEEPING WILLIE BILLJIM THE CRUSADERS PEACE, BLESSED PEACE THE HAPPY GARDENERS THE GERM JOEY'S JOB THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME HOW HERMAN WON THE CROSS WHEN TOMMY CAME MARCHING HOME HELLO, SOLDIER! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dyson, 'Hello, soldier!'

“ To get together.
'Board ship there's me like arf a peach,
'N' Ned's the other arf, but soon it
Strikes' Bill Carkeek that side by each
We makes a satisfact'rv unit.
A 'andy cobber on the ship
Fakes up for us a set of clutches
That damps us firmly hip to hip. ”

Edward Dyson

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Quotes from 'Hello, soldier!' (Edward Dyson)

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