Excerpt from More Ballads of Field and Billet: And Other Verses

Somewhere in France.

Whatever in the coming days our work, our luck, may be,
Our hope deferred is realised - we've crossed the narrow sea,
For long we suffered sympathy, kind question, hostile scoff,
Preparing, waiting, praying for the order to be off,
And now, come weal or woe, we're here, at last we've got our chance -
We're with the friends we've envied and we're somewhere out in France!

We used to long to wander, in the distant days of peace,
But custom kept us captive, hardly dreaming of release,
We lived in soft security, despising humdrum days
That followed one another with the same stale, irksome ways,
We may not meet adventure here, we look for no romance,
But anyhow we're riding down the muddy roads of France.

Long, long ago the English hosts, in sunshine and in rain,
Came, tramping where their stubborn sons now march to war again.

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