Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/170

166

Medical Officer.

Would-be Recruit.



mobilisers of that other arm
 * Whose might is famed superior to the sabre's,

Who furnish forth the wherewithal to charm
 * The Special Correspondent to his labours,

And by whose enterprise we're daily fed on Reports of Armageddon,

List to my plaint. It is not that I tire
 * Of those despatches—picturesque effusions—

Which by the witness of a later wire
 * Are proved to rank among the Great Illusions;

Though much to be deplored, such news, I'm willing Freely to own, is thrilling.

But when your pages, shrunken through the scare
 * Of that worst blow of all, a paper famine,

Dispense exclusively Bellona's fare,
 * And, failing battle tales, you simply cram in

Facts about spies, commodities and prices, I writhe beneath this crisis.

I can support the other pains of war:
 * Transport disorganised and credit shaken,

The fear of hunger knocking at the door,
 * And threepence extra on a pound of bacon;

In fact, I'd be the most resigned of creatures If you'd compose your "features."

Could you not lift a corner of the mask
 * That makes these solemn days so much more solemn?

A very little ray is all I ask
 * To light the utter darkness—say a column

Of "stories" which your slang describes as "snappy;" With these I could be happy;

With these my topic Muse I might entice;
 * But war has left her mute, and me despairing.

They call for horses; must I sacrifice
 * The steed with whom I've taken many an airing?

Poor Pegasus—and none too well-conditioned! Must he be requisitioned?

 "'Haclen is forty-five miles north-west of Liege; it is fifty miles east of Brussels.'

'The centre of the battle was at Haclen (thirty miles north-west of Liege and thirty miles from Brussels).'"

This is simply to deceive the Germans.