THE LOVELESS SERGEANT

A dreadful state of affairs when a young man's passion for his girl is considered dirty and war is quite all right.

“They're kissing!” boomed the sergeant

Swagger-stick almost a-shaking,

“He's shoved his tongue inside her mouth,

His morals must be breaking!

“He's pushed his hand inside her blouse,

It's such a damned disgrace,

Whatever next? I ask myself,

For our splendid human race?

“And what's she doing in his pants?

It's time there was a ban!

I'll thrash his hide, I'll pulp his brains,

He'll learn to be a man!”

And then the youngster, tears in eyes,

Turned from his loving girl,

And marched towards the compound,

His emotions in a whirl.

“Hey you!” the sergeant bellowed out,

“I'll have your guts for garters!

There's no space in this brave man's corps

For canoodling thus for starters!

“You're off to fight, you yellow-back,

You're off to spill your blood,

And there's not a space for love and stuff,

Is that much understood?”

He might have boomed a great deal more,

Of sex and flesh as well,

But plummeting down like satan's hoards

Came a great big shining shell.

It created quite an awesome boom,

It shattered hopes and dreaming

And human hearts were filled with dread,

The air with painful screaming.

And when the debris settled down

And the youngster cleared his head

He saw the sergeant on the ground

cold and stiff and dead.

He shambled, dazed, and found his girl

Where only the dead might lie,

and kissed her one last gentle time

and thought he heard her cry:

but it was just a breath of blood-stained wind

Like the echo of a sigh.