Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/166

162 OUT OF FLANDERS

Three of us sat on the firing-bench

Watching the clouds sail by—

Watching the gray dawn blowing up

Like smoke across the sky.

And I thought as I listened to London Joe

Tell of his leave in town,

That's good vers libre with a Cockney twang;

I'll remember and write it down.

W'en I went 'ome on furlough,

My missus says to me, "Joe,

'Ow many 'Uns 'ave you killed?"

An' I says to 'er, "'Uns?"

Not thinkin' just wot she meant.

"Yes. 'Uns," she says, "them sneakin', low-lived 'Uns!"

Bitter? Not 'arf, she ain't!

An' they're all the same w'y in Lunnon.

My old mate Bill, who's lame

An' couldn't enlist on that account,

'E staked me to a pint of ale

At the Red Lion. Proper stuff it was

Arter this flat French beer.

"Well, 'ere's to old times!" says Bill,

Raisin' 'is glass,

"An' bad luck to the 'Uns you've sent below!