The Ballad of Ensign Joy
Date: 2016-07-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: World War; 1914-1918 -- Poetry

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ballad of Ensign Joy

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Title: The Ballad of Ensign Joy

Author: E. W. Hornung

Release date: July 11, 2016 [eBook #52559]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52559

Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF ENSIGN JOY ***

THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY

By E.W. Hornung

E. P. Dutton & Company

1917

THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY

I T is the story of

Ensign Joy

And the obsolete
rank withal

That I love for each gentle English
boy

Who jumped to his country's
call.

By their fire and fun, and the
deeds they've done,

I would gazette them Second to
none

Who faces a gun in Gaul!)

IT is also the story of Ermyntrude

A less appropriate name

For the dearest prig and the
prettiest prude!

But under it, all the same,

The usual consanguineous squad

Had made her an honest child
of God—

And left her to play the game.

IT was just when the grind of
the Special Reserves,

Employed upon Coast Defence,

Was getting on every Ensign's
nerves—

Sick-keen to be drafted
hence—

That they met and played tennis
and danced and sang,

The lad with the laugh and the
schoolboy slang,

The girl with the eyes intense.

YET it wasn't for him that she
languished and sighed,

But for all of our dear deemed
youth;

And it wasn't for her, but her
sex, that he cried,

If he could but have probed
the truth !

Did she? She would none of his
hot young heart;

As khaki escort he's tall and
smart,

As lover a shade uncouth.

HE went with his draft. She
returned to her craft.

He wrote in his merry vein:

She read him aloud, and the

Studio laughed!

Ermyntrude bore the strain.

He was full of gay bloodshed and

Old Man Fritz:

His flippancy sent her friends
into fits.

Ermyntrude frowned with
pain.

HIS tales of the Sergeant who
swore so hard

Left Ermyntrude cold and
prim;

The tactless truth of the picture
jarred,

And some of his jokes were
grim.

Yet, let him but skate upon
tender ice,

And he had to write to her twice
or thrice

Before she would answer him.

YET once she sent him a
fairy's box,

And her pocket felt the brunt

Of tinned contraptions and
books and socks—

Which he hailed as "a sporting
stunt!"

She slaved at his muffler none
the less,

And still took pleasure in mur-
muring, "Yes!

For a friend of mine at the

Front.")

ONE fine morning his name
appears—

Looking so pretty in print!

"Wounded!" she warbles in
tragedy tears—

And pictures the reddening
lint,

The drawn damp face and the
draggled hair . . .

But she found him blooming in

Grosvenor Square,

With a punctured shin in a
splint.

IT wasn't a haunt of Ermyn-
trude's,

That grandiose urban pile;

Like starlight in arctic altitudes

Was the stately Sister's smile.

It was just the reverse with

Ensign Joy—

In his golden greeting no least
alloy—

In his shining eyes no guile!

HE showed her the bullet that
did the trick—

He showed her the trick,
x-ray'd;

He showed her a table timed to
a tick,

And a map that an airman
made.

He spoke of a shell that caused grievous loss—

But he never mentioned a certain
cross

For his part in the escapade!

SHE saw it herself in a list next
day,

And it brought her back to his
bed,

With a number of beautiful
things to say,

Which were mostly over his
head.

Turned pink as his own pyjamas'

stripe,

To her mind he ceased to em-
body a type—

Sank into her heart instead.

I WONDER that all of you
didn't retire!"

"My blighters were not that
kind."

"But it says you 'advanced un-
der murderous fire,

Machine-gun and shell com-
bined—'"

"Oh, that's the regular War

Office wheeze!"

"'Advanced'—with that leg!—

'on his hands and knees'!"

"I couldn't leave it behind."

HE was soon trick-driving an
invalid chair,
and dancing about on a crutch;

The haute noblesse of Grosvenor

Square

Felt bound to oblige as such;

They sent him for many a motor-
whirl—

With the wistful, willowy wisp of
a girl

Who never again lost touch.

THEIR people were most of
them dead and gone.

They had only themselves to

His pay was enough to marry
upon,

As every Ensign sees.

They would muddle along (as
in fact they did)

With vast supplies of the tertium
quid

You bracket with bread-and-
cheese.

please.

THEY gave him some leave
after Grosvenor Square—

And bang went a month on
banns;

For Ermyntrude had a natural
flair

For the least unusual plans.

Her heaviest uncle came down
well,

And entertained, at a fair hotel,

The dregs of the coupled clans.

A CERTAIN number of
cheques accrued

To keep the wolf from the
door:

The economical Ermyntrude

Had charge of the dwindling
store,

When a Board reported her
bridegroom fit

As—some expression she didn't
permit . . .

And he left for the Front once
more.

HIS crowd had been climbing
the jaws of hell:

He found them in death's dog-
teeth,

With little to show but a good
deal to tell

In their fissure of smoking
heath.

There were changes—of course

—but the change in him

Was the ribbon that showed on
his tunic trim

And the tumult hidden be-
neath!

FOR all he had suffered and
seen before

Seemed nought to a husband's
care;

And the Chinese puzzle of mod-
ern war

For subtlety couldn't compare

With the delicate springs of the
complex life

To be led with a highly sensitised
wife

In a slightly rarefied air!

YET it's good to be back with
the old platoon—

"A man in a world of men"!

Each cheery dog is a henchman
boon—

Especially Sergeant Wren!

Ermyntrude couldn't endure his
name—

Considered bad language no lien
on fame,

Yet it's good to—hear it
again!

BETTER to feel the Ser-
geant's grip,

Though your fingers ache to
the bone!

Better to take the Sergeant's tip

Than to make up your mind
alone.

They can do things together, can

Wren and Joy—

The bristly bear and the beard-
less boy—

That neither could do on his
own.

BUT there's never a word
about Old Man Wren

In the screeds he scribbles
to-day—

Though he praises his N.C.O.'s
and men

In rather a pointed way.

And he rubs it in (with a knitted
brow)

That the war's as good as a pic-
nic now,

And better than any play!

HIS booby-hutch is "as safe
as the Throne,"

And he fares "like the C.-in-

Chief,"

But has purchased "a top-hole
gramophone

By way of comic relief."

(And he sighs as he hears the
men applaud,

While the Woodbine spices are
wafted abroad

With the odour of bully-beef.)

HE may touch on the latest
type of bomb,

But Ermyntrude needn't
blench,

For he never says where you hurl
it from,

And it might be from your
trench.

He never might lead a stealthy
band,

Or toe the horrors of No Man's

Land,

Or swim at the sickly stench. . . .

HER letters came up by
ration-cart

As the men stood-to before
dawn:

He followed the chart of her
soaring heart

With face transfigured yet
drawn:

It filled him with pride, touched
with chivalrous shame.

But—it spoilt the war, as a first-
class game,

For this particular pawn.

THE Sergeant sees it, and
damns the cause

In a truly terrible flow;

But turns and trounces, without
a pause,

A junior N. C. O.

For the crime of agreeing that

Ensign Joy

Isn't altogether the officer boy

That he was four months ago!

AT length he's dumfounded

(the month being May)

By a sample of Ermyntrude's
fun!

"You will kindly get leave over

Christmas Day,

Or make haste and finish the

But Christmas means presents,
she bids him beware:

"So what do you say to a son and
heir?

I'm thinking of giving you

Hun!"

WHAT, indeed, does the

Ensign say?

What does he sit and write?

What do his heart-strings drone all day?

What do they throb all night?

What does he add to his piteous
prayers?—

"Not for my own sake, Lord, but

—theirs,

See me safe through ..."

THEY talk—and he writhes

—"of our spirit out here,

Our valour and all the rest!

There's my poor, lonely, delicate
dear,

As brave as the very best!

We stand or fall in a cheery
crowd,

And yet how often we grouse
aloud!

She faces that with a jest!"

HE has had no sleep for a day
and a night;

He has written her half a
ream;

He has Iain him down to wait for
the light,

And at last come sleep—and a
dream.

He's hopping on sticks up the
studio stair:

A telegraph-boy is waiting there,

And—that is his darling's
scream!

HE picks her up in a tender
storm—

But how does it come to pass

That he cannot see his reflected
form

With hers in the studio glass?

"What's wrong with that mir-
ror?"' he cries.

But only the Sergeant's voice
replies:

"Wake up, Sir! The Gas—
the Gas!"

IS it a part of the dream of
dread?

What are the men about?

Each one sticking a haunted
head

Into a spectral clout!

Funny, the dearth of gibe and
joke,

When each one looks like a pig
in a poke,

Not omitting the snout!

THERE'S your mask, Sir! No
time to lose!"

Ugh, what a gallows shape!

Partly white cap, and partly
noose!

Somebody ties the tape.

Goggles of sorts, it seems, inset:

Cock them over the parapet,

Study the battlescape.

ENSIGN JOY'S in the second
line—

And more than a bit cut off;

A furlong or so down a green
incline

The fire-trench curls in the
trough.

Joy cannot see it—it's in the bed

Of a river of poison that brims
instead.

He can only hear—a cough!

NOTHING to do for the

Companies there—

Nothing but waiting now,

While the Gas rolls up on the
balmy air,

And a small bird cheeps on a
bough.

All of a sudden the sky seems full

Of trusses of lighted cotton-wool

And the enemy's big bow-
wow!

THE firmament cracks with
his airy mines,

And an interlacing hail

Threshes the clover between our
lines,

As a vile invisible flail.

And the trench has become a
mighty vice

That holds us, in skins of molten
ice,

For the vapors that fringe the
veil.

IT'S coming—in billowy swirls

—as smoke

From the roof a world on fire.

It—comes! And a lad with a
heart of oak

Knows only that heart's de-
sire!

His masked lips whimper but one
dear name—

And so is he lost to inward shame

That he thrills at the word:

"Re-tire!"

WHOSE is the order, thrice
renewed?

Ensign Joy cannot tell :

Only, that way lies Ermyntrude,

And the other way this hell!

Three men leap from the pois-
oned fosse,

Three men plunge from the para-
dos,

And—their—officer—as well!

NOW, as he flies at their fly-
ing heels,

He awakes to his deep dis-
grace,

But the yawning pit of his shame
reveals

A way of saving his face:

He twirls his stick to a shep-
herd's crook,

To trip and bring one of them
back to book,

As though he'd been giving
chase!

HE got back gasping—

"They'd too much start!"

"I'd've shot 'em instead!"

said Wren.

"That was your job, Sir, if you'd
the 'eart—

But it wouldn't 've been you,
then.

I pray my Lord I may live to see

A firing-party in front o' them
three!"

(That's what he said to the
men.)

NOW, Joy and Wren, of

Company B,

Are a favourite firm of mine;

And the way they reinforced A,

C, and D

Was, perhaps, not unduly fine;

But it meant a good deal both to

Wren and Joy—

That grim, gaunt man, but that
desperate boy!—

And it didn't weaken the Line.

NOT a bad effort of yours,
my lad,"

The Major deigned to declare.

"My Sergeant's plan, Sir"—

"And that's not bad—

But you've lost that ribbon
you wear?"

"It—must have been eaten away
by the Gas!"

"Well—ribbons are ribbons—
but don't be an ass!

It's better to do than dare."

DARE! He has dared to de-
sert his post—

But he daren't acknowledge
his sin!

He has dared to face Wren with
a lying boast—

But Wren is not taken in.

None sings his praises so long
and loud—

With look so loving and loyal
and proud!

But the boy sees under his
skin.

DAILY and gaily he wrote to
his wife,

Who had dropped the beati-
fied droll

And was writing to him on the

Meaning of Life

And the Bonds between Body
and Soul.

Her courage was high—though
she mentioned its height;

She was putting upon her the

Armour of Light—

Including her aureole!

BUT never a helm had the lad
we know,

As he went on his nightly raids

With a brace of his Blighters, an

N. G O.

And a bagful of hand-grenades

And the way he rattled and
harried the Hun—

The deeds he did dare, and the
risks he would run—

Were the gossip of the Bri-
gades.

HOW he'd stand stockstill as
the trunk of a tree,

With his face tucked down
out of sight,

When a flare went up and the
other three

Fell prone in the frightening
light.

How the German sandbags, that
made them quake,

Were the only cover he cared to
take,

But he'd eavesdrop there all
night.

MACHINE-GUNS, tapping
a phrase in Morse,

Grew hot on a random quest,

And swarms of bullets buzzed
down the course

Like wasps from a trampled
nest.

Yet, that last night!

They had just set off

When he pitched on his face with
a smothered cough,

And a row of holes in his chest.

HE left a letter. It saved
the lives

Of the three who ran from the

Gas;

A small enclosure alone survives,

In Middlesex, under glass:

Only the ribbon that left his
breast

On the day he turned and ran
with the rest,

And lied with a lip of brass!

BUT the letters they wrote
about the boy,

From the Brigadier to the
men!

They would never forget dear

Mr. Joy,

Not look on his like again.

Ermyntrude read them with dry,
proud eye.

There was only one letter that
made her cry.

It was from Sergeant Wren:

THERE never was such a fear-
less man,

Or one so beloved as he.

He was always up to some daring
plan,

Or some treat for his men and
me.

There wasn't his match when he
went away;

But since he got back, there has
not been a day

But what he has earned a

V. C

A CYNICAL story? That's
not my view.

The years since he fell are
twain.

What were his chances of coming
through?

Which of his friends remain?

But Ermyntrude's training a
splendid boy

Twenty years younger than En-
sign Joy.

On balance, a British gain!

AND Ermyntrude, did she
lose her all

Or find it, two years ago?

O young girl-wives of the boys
who fall,

With your youth and your
babes to show!

No heart but bleeds for your
widowhood.

Yet Life is with you, and Life is
good.

No bone of your bone lies low!

YOUR blessedness came—as
it went—in a day.

Deep dread but heightened
your mirth.

Your idols' feet never turned to
clay—

Never lit upon common earth.

Love is the Game but is not the

Goal:

You played it together, body and
soul,

And you had your Candle's
worth.

YES! though the Candle light
a Shrine,

And heart cannot count the
cost,

You are Winners yet in its tender
shine!

Would they choose to have
lived and lost?

There are chills, you see, for the
finest hearts;

But, once it is only old Death
that parts,

There can never come twinge
of frost.

AND this be our comfort for

Every Boy

Cut down in his high heyday,

Or ever the Sweets of the Morn-
ing cloy,

Or the Green Leaf wither
away;

So a sunlit billow curls to a crest,

And shouts as it breaks at its
loveliest,

In a glory of rainbow spray!

BE it also the making of

Ermyntrude,

And many a hundred more—

Compact of foibles and forti-
tude—

Woo'd, won, and widow'd, in

War.

God, keep us gallant and unde-
filed,

Worthy of Husband, Lover, or

—Child...

Sweet as themselves at the
core!

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF ENSIGN JOY ***

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- THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY
- E. P. Dutton & Company
- 1917
- THE BALLAD of ENSIGN JOY
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