The Brown Brethren

Over the top is cold, matey; You lie on the field alone-- Didn't I love you of old, matey, Dearer than blood of my own? You were my dearest chum, matey, (Gawd, but your face is...

"I want to go 'ome, I want to go 'ome, I don't want to go to the trenches no more, Where the bullets and shrapnel do whistle and roar, I want to go over the sea, Where the Alley...

There's a rum jar in the dug-out and a parcel in the post-- Fol ol the diddle ol the dee! And I couldn't be much colder were I handcuffed to a ghost-- Fol ol the diddle ol the d...

There's a shell as 'as fell in the mud, A bloomin' big shell in the mud, A bloomin' big shell, An' it might give us 'ell. As it would if it wasn't a dud.

Strict on parade! When I'm on it I'm ready To shove blokes about if they do not keep steady! Comin' the acid! Stow it there! or it Won't do with me and then you'll be for it! Sw...

All the night the frogs go chuckle; all the day the birds are singing, In the pond beside the meadow; by the roadway poplar-lined; In the field between the trenches are a millio...

A lamp swinging from a beam lit up the apartment, showing the straw heaped in the corners, the sickles and spades hanging from the rafters, the sleepers lying in all conceivable...

Blurry well freezin' and cold as sin, Christmas Day in the mornin'; The big guns welcome the Saviour in, Christmas Day in the mornin'; Used to have fingers and used to have toes...

I'll teach you, you bounder, to snipe, For I'm nosing around, With my face to the ground, And a round in the breach of my hipe. You'd best keep a blurry look-out, For there's no...

We're out't for duration now and do not care a cuss, There's beer to spare at dinner time and afters now for us, But if our buttys still were out in Flanders raising Cain, We'd...

I knew a bird at 'Ammersmith and free or four at Bow, But that was 'fore the war begun, a damned long time ago; But I'm a blurry Tommy now and never lose a chance When far away...

What awaits you, boy, out yonder, where the great guns rip and thunder, There's a menace in their message, guns that called you from afar, But where'er your fortune guide you ma...

Now out in the trenches you'll find to your cost That the slower you shuffle the sooner you're lost; There are actions done better the quicker they're done, Like getting your ra...

In the village the houses were fractured by high explosive shells, the windows were paneless and the doors latchless, chimneys had been hurled to the ground and pounded to dust....

We labour in the trenches with rifle, maul and spade, We're soldiers, cooks and carpenters, and everything to trade; We stand on sentry-go all night and turn to kip at dawn, But...

It's bloomin' well still the same, Ever and always the same, Right in the thick of it, Not feelin' sick of it, Naw! but it's always the same, the same.

You'll like to hear it one and all, for what I say is true; The turf is wet upon the bog, the snow is on the farm, You'd better take a wife to bed, she's sure to keep you warm;...

The sergeant's water bottle's full, But it is strange to see The sergeant on the 'ear'ole for Some water for his tea. But ain't it strange when night is on And we are out o' sig...

We're well in the doin's. No more to be said-- The orficer wounded; the sergeant is dead. If somethin' don't 'appen and that very soon, We'll not have a man in the blurry platoo...

The good French girls will cook brown loaves above the oven fire, And while they do the daily toil of barn and bench and byre, They'll think of hearty fellows gone and sigh for...

A soft rain was falling; a low wind swept across the levels, and the leaves of a near birch copse rustled in the breeze, faltering timidly as they shook the rain from their shin...

The night breeze sweeps La Bassée Road, the night dews wet the hay, The boys are coming back again; a straggling crowd are they; The column lines are broken, there are gaps in t...