Read Ebook: Titanicin perikato Romantillinen kuvaus Titanic-laivan haaksirikosta yöllä vasten 15 päivää huhtikuuta 1912 by Calamnius Edvin

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Ebook has 1526 lines and 46772 words, and 31 pages

"Infantry, cavalry, guard and lancer-- Who on that day will bear the brunt, With twinkling feet like a tip-toe dancer Dribbling about while the half-backs grunt? There is only one Who can vanquish the Hun!" And Bottlesham town with a cry made answer, "There is only one; we must send our Tom to the front."

EVOE.

A RIVAL OF "TIPPERARY."

While much has been written of the songs that inspire our own brave troops on the march, little is heard of those affected by our Allies.

It's a hard nut is Cracow, It's a hard nut to crack, But it's not so hard to crack, oh! When once you've got the knack. Good-bye, Przemysl; Farewell, Lemberg ; It's a hard, hard nut to crack is Cracow, But we'll soon crack it now.

But we'll crack it right off,

to rhyme with Lvoff--the correct pronunciation of Lwow, according to a contemporary.

AT THE PLAY.

Having made this protest I have little but praise for the performance itself, though I think Sir HERBERT TREE'S own lethargy was not wholly to be excused by the hampering rotundity of his girth; and that all this deliberate sword-play, where you wait till your enemy has got his right guard before you arrange a concussion between your weapon and his, fails to impose itself as an image of War. But it was no fault of the actors if we suffered a further loss of actuality by the incredible amount of fine poetry and rhetoric thrown off by military men at junctures calling for immediate action.

O. S.

A GRIEVANCE.

Well, it is like this. A man who is only a year or so too old for active service, but feels as fit and keen as a boy, has so many opportunities for regretting his enforced civilism and absence from the arena that it is hard when additional ones are thrust upon him.

He may do his best at home. He may guard gasworks, or organise funds, or campaign as an enlister, or visit the hospitals; but all the time he is conscious that being here is so different from being there. It galls him day and night, and the only thing that can help him at all is the society of lovely women, and now he has lost that!

I hate to grumble, and I have, I believe, shouldered my share of the new taxes like a man, but I am not made of such stern stuff as to be superior to all human aid, and in my own case the mortification of non-combating, which now and then becomes depressingly acute, is to be alleviated only in this way. Nice women must do their part.

But do they? No. They did at first, but no longer.

Let me tell you. The other evening I found myself one of the complacent hosts of a party of merry chattering young women, who seemed to be quite satisfied with our attention. All of us were just beginning to be very jolly, and I had actually forgotten my hard destiny of inactivity, when who should come into the room but an officer on crutches, who happened to be an acquaintance of each of our guests but was unknown both to me and my other just too elderly male friends. In an instant we were alone, and alone we remained for certainly half an hour, while every attention was being paid by our guests to that other. When at last they tore themselves away and returned, their conversation was wholly confined to their wounded friend's adventures, and we need not have been there at all, except to pay the bill.

Now it is no fun to me to deceive anyone but myself, and hence I shall not go about with my arm in a sling and win sympathy and attention to which I am not entitled; but I do appeal to all the young women to have a little pity on some of us compulsory stay-at-homes. Nothing is too good for our fighting men. I repeat it. But just a tiny spark of animation might be retained in the feminine eye when it alights upon an old friend who is debarred from taking arms. Just a spark, otherwise we shall go into a melancholy decline.

Smart Work.

If we were not confident that we should be wrong in putting upon these words the sinister interpretation which they invite, we shouldn't envy the advertiser when the owner returns.

"We have made progress near to Berry au Bac, And on our right wing there is nothing new."

From the French official report, November 12th:--

"We have also made some progress around Berry au Bac."

And on the right wing there was nothing new.

FAN.

Fan, the hunt terrier, runs with the pack, A little white bitch with a patch on her back; She runs with the pack as her ancestors ran-- We're an old-fashioned lot here and breed 'em like Fan; Round of skull, harsh of coat, game and little and low, The same as we bred sixty seasons ago.

So she's harder than nails, and she's nothing to learn From her scarred little snout to her cropped little stern, And she hops along gaily, in spite of her size, With twenty-four couples of big badger-pyes: 'Tis slow, but 'tis sure is the old white and grey, And 'twill sing to a fox for a whole winter day.

FOR THE CHILDREN.

O generous hearts that freely give, Nor heed the lessening of your store, So but our well-loved land may live, Much have you given--give once more!

For little children spent with toil, For little children worn with pain, I ask a gift of healing oil-- Say, shall I ask for it in vain?

For, since our days are filled with woe, And all the paths are dark and chill, This thought may cheer us as we go, And bring us light and comfort still;

This, this may stay our faltering feet, And this our mournful minds beguile:-- We helped some little heart to beat And taught some little face to smile.

R. C. L.

THE PATRIOT.

This is a true story. Unless you promise to believe me, it is not much good my going on.... You promise? Very well.

"The Charge of the Uhlans." If you came to see me, you had to hear it. As arranged for the pianola, it was marked to be played throughout at a lightning pace and with the loudest pedal on. So one would play it if one wished to annoy the man in the flat below; but a true musician has, I take it, a higher aim. I disregarded the "FF.'s" and the other sign-posts on the way, and gave it my own interpretation. As played by me, "The Charge of the Uhlans" became a whole battle scene. Indeed, it was necessary, before I began, that I should turn to my audience and describe the scene to them--in the manner, but not in the words, of a Queen's Hall programme:--

"Er--first of all you hear the cavalry galloping past, and then there's a short hymn before action while they form up, and then comes the charge, and then there's a slow bit while they--er--pick up the wounded, and then they trot slowly back again. And if you listen carefully to the last bit you'll actually hear the horses limping."

Something like that I would say; and it might happen that an insufferable guest would object that the hymn part was unusual in real warfare.

"They sang it in this piece anyhow," I would say stiffly, and turn my back on him and begin.

But the war put a stop to music as to many other things. For three months the pianola has not been played by either of us. There are two reasons for this: first, that we simply haven't the time now; and secondly, that we are getting all the music we want from the flat below. The flat below is learning "Tipperary" on one finger. He gets as far as the farewell to Leicester Square, and then he breaks down; the parting is too much for him.

I was not, then, surprised at the beginning of this month to find Celia looking darkly at the pianola.

"It's very ugly," she began.

"We can't help our looks," I said in my grandmother's voice.

"A bookcase would be much prettier there."

"But not so tuneful."

"A pianola isn't tuneful if you never play it."

"True," I said.

Celia then became very alluring, and suggested that I might find somebody who would like to be lent a delightful pianola for a year or so by somebody whose delightful wife had her eye on a delightful bookcase.

"I might," I said.

"Somebody," said Celia, "who isn't supplied with music from below."

I found John. He was quite pleased about it, and promised to return the pianola when the war was over.

So on Wednesday it went. I was not sorry, because in its silence it was far from beautiful, and we wanted another bookcase badly. But on Tuesday evening--its last hours with us--I had to confess to a certain melancholy. It is sad to part with an old and well-tried friend, particularly when that friend is almost entirely responsible for your marriage. I looked at the pianola and then I said to Celia, "I must play it once again."

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