THE LOST POEM

I called to see our regimental poet last evening. He had previously told me that he intended to “write something” for “The Anzac Book.” Our poet is also Q.M. Sergeant, and when he is not writing requisitions or taking “baksheesh” out of our rations, and watering our rum, he writes poetry.

When I called on him he was in his dug-out, surrounded by bully-beef tins, empty cases, and his ill-gotten shares of our daily issues. He has many callers, and I am afraid their inquiries rather spoilt his verses. When I arrived the Q.M.S. was already in a poor humour for writing poetry. The O.C. had been worrying him about galvanised iron for cover for some dug-outs; three men had complained about the scantiness of their rum issue—which somehow always annoys the Q.M.S.; and he had received no letters in the day’s mail except a bill from a chap he had borrowed a pound from in Charleville two years ago. Still, our Q.M.S. is a sticker, and he read me the covering letter which he was sending to the Editor.

He said he thought it would be as well to get the letter off his mind first. That would make the writing of the verses necessary, and he would have to complete the job in order to keep faith.

Before I arrived he had written:

Yes, Mr. Editor, I will try to “write something” for your book. ’Tis a glorious day, bright with sunshine, and the snow has melted away from the sides of the hills—snow that so many Anzacites saw fall for the first time. I know a state where no snow falls. And, to-night, being rum issue night, I would sing to you of black soil plains and wheat-fields, of warm comfy boundary riders’ huts, and of holidays where plump maids join you in surf-bathing excursions. But you see I am a Q.M.S., and at other times when I have tried to versify I have been disturbed. We have a Quartermaster, but, of course, I do all the work. Well, let’s rhyme. Boy, bring me the lyre. The Quartermaster? No, I don’t want the Quartermaster. I want a harp that I may sing to my muse....

He had just read this much out when the sergeant came in and reported that the C.O. insisted on the galvanised iron being procured to-morrow. Then a corporal called and wanted to know could six men in his section have new boots, and when would the rubber boots be ready for the coves in the trenches?

“How can a man write when he is interrupted like this?” asked our poet. “I had a lovely inspiration, too, about surf bathing. It ran like this——”

But again there was an interruption. The sergeant cook was the caller, and he was angry and hostile. “How the —— canI cook seventy beef teas, forty puddings and two hundred milk diets with the bloomin’ quarter issue of water I get? Love me, when I was cooking for shearing sheds out on the Barcoo, where it never rained, I could get as much water as I wanted. If you want them bloomin’ milk diets you got to get me water—or cook them yourself.”

I don’t know whether our poet had a rod with which he taps the rock and brings forth water, but he mollified the sergeant cook by getting water from somewhere. It tasted well in the rum, too. I would have heard the first line of the poem if one of the sergeants in our hospital had not called down for three hot-water bottles, a tin of Bovril, and some brandy for a sick soldier. I wonder how sick you have to be before you get brandy? Before the sergeant had gone the orderly officer came in. He bullied the Q.M.S. about not getting some tents repaired.

“It’s hard work trying to write a poem here,” said the Q.M.S. sadly, when the orderly officer departed. “For two pins I’d chuck writin’, but that idea about the surf girls is too good to lose. I was going to start with this line——”

“Those patients up in Number Three Ward must have more blankets. And you will have to get another forty beds ready to-night,” yelled a voice at the door.

“Excuse me a bit,” said the poet. He was gone about an hour. When he returned there were five men waiting to interview him. The corporal wished that the Q.M.S. would explain how men were to keep their boots on without laces, and whether socks were supposed to be everlasting. The second caller came on a more peaceful mission. He simply wished to know if the Q.M.S. had heard anything about a consignment of Christmas billy-cans that good people in Australia are supposed to be sending us. I don’t know why, but this query made my friend very angry. “Do you think I’ve got your bloomin’ billy-cans?” he yelled. Why should a Q.M.S. say a thing like that? And he seemed so indignant about it, too. The third chap wanted some paper and an envelope to write to his girl; the fourth wanted an old blanket and some twine to make a shroud for a man who had died; and the fifth asked whether the Q.M.S. knew what was the latest war news. When he was told to go to a place warmer than Port Darwin, he asked quietly if either of us could tell him if sheep would do well around Adrianople after the war.

It was growing late, but I thought I would wait a bit and hear that first line about the surf bathers. Two men came in for soap; a doctor chap called to ask whether there was any fruit to make a fruit salad for a sick man; a lance-corporal said his boots hurt, and got a bigger pair; the cook came back and complained that somebody had pinched six tins of condensed milk; and an officer’s servant inquired whether his boss could have an old box and a ground-sheet to make a bath.

Then the Q.M.S. had another rum and took up his pencil again. He spread out a piece of paper and commenced to write. “I’ll get that first verse off and read it to you,” he said. He would have done it, too, but for the sergeant-major. Our sergeant-major is a—well, he is just a sergeant-major, and he does not write verse.

THE HOSPITAL CAMP

WATER CARRIERS

A Y.M.C.A. CANTEEN QUEUE

ANZAC SKETCHES

By DAVID BARKER

“What about those great-coats?” he roared. “Didn’t I tell you to get them to-day? And they are not here. Weeks ago I ordered you to get them. I don’t suppose you ever requisitioned for them. What’s that you’re writing now—requisitions?”

“No, sir,” said the Q.M.S. “It’s a poem.”

Then the ’major saw red. “What the blazes have I got here?” he yelled. “Men dying from cold because they’ve got no coats, and you writing poems. What the——”

He fainted away, and I was present when the doctors came out of the hospital tent to which they carried him. One of the doctors said the sergeant-major was a splendid soldier, but he had received a tremendous shock from some unknown cause, and they don’t think he can recover.

When the Q.M.S. heard that he became very despondent. “I won’t write that poem now,” he said; “but it would have been a splendid thing. All about a pretty girl in the surf who met a fellow from the bush....”

R. A. L.1st Australian Stat. Hosp.

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