Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub and kit,
He's always there where the fighting is--he's there unless he's hit;
Over the mud and the blasted earth he goes where the living can;
He's in at the death while he yet has breath, the British infantryman!
Trudge and slip on the shell-hole's lip, and fall in the clinging mire--
Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!
Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump
clear!
Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! And duck when the shells come
near!
Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench,
With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden
khaki's stench!
Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can--
This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.
And if anyone should think that this means the permanent establishment of
militarism in our midst let him be comforted by the saying of an old
sergeant-major when asked to give a character of one of his men. "He's a
good man in the trenches, and a good man in a scrap; but you'll never make
a soldier of him." The new armies fight all the harder because they want to
make an end not of this war but of all wars. As for the regulars, there is
no need to enlarge on their valour.
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