A Visit From St. Jacka VC
'Twas the night before Anzac, when all through the trench
Not a creature was stirring, not even the French;
The ladders were stacked by the sandbags with care,
In hopes that Jacka VC soon would be there;
The diggers were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of bayonets danced in their heads;
And mamma in her gas mask, and I in my slouch,
Had just settled in on the bullet-strewn couch,
When from No Man’s Land there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.
Out of the dugout I flew in a spin,
Snatched up a grenade and pulled out the pin.
The moon on the form of the new-fallen Turks,
Lit up all their delightful pre-mortem jerks,
When upon what did my wondering eyes then seize,
But a miniature tank and eight tiny donkeys
With an infantryman who seemed such a cracker,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Jacka.
More rapid than eagles his asses they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Birdwood! now, Monash! now Dunlop and Simpson!
On, Cutler! on, Currey! Roberts-Smith and Mel Gibson!
To the top of the trench! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As diggers that before the Kleinflammenwerfer fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, dive in a hole;
So down to the dugout the donkeys they flew
With the tank full of ammo, and St. Jacka too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard in the mud
The squelching and splashing of hooves in fresh blood
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the ladder the captain he came with a bound.
He was dressed all in khaki with many red stains,
And his clothes were all tarnished with human remains;
A haemorrhaging body he had on his back,
And he looked like a serial killer on crack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bun,
And the blood on his chin was as red as the sun;
The stump of a thighbone he held in his teeth,
And from the opposite trench came the howling of grief;
He had an Enfield and a Webley self-loading
That gave off thick smoke with a sense of foreboding.
He was joyous and glad, a bloodthirsty young buck,
I could tell when I saw him, he gave not a fuck;
A wink of his eye and a blast of his gun,
Reminded me of how a war can be fun;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled the whole trench with the guts of the Turk
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the trench wall he rose;
He sprang to his tank , to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Anzac to all, and to all a good night!”