The Young Guard

E. W. Hornung

The Young Guard

CONSECRATION

CHILDREN we deemed you all the daysWe vexed you with our care:But in a Universe ablaze,What was your childish share?To rush upon the flames of Hell,To quench them with your blood!To be of England's flower that fellEre yet it brake the bud!And we who wither where we grew,And never shed but tears,As children now would follow youThrough the remaining years;Tread' in the steps we thought to guide,As firmly as you trod;And keep the name you glorifiedClean before matt and God.

LORD'S LEAVE

(1915)

NO Lord's this year: no silken lawn on whichA dignified and dainty throng meanders.The Schools take guard upon a fierier pitchSomewhere in Flanders.Bigger the cricket here; yet some who triedIn vain to earn a Colour while at EtonHave found a place upon an England sideThat can't be beaten!A demon bowler's bowling with his head —His heart's as black as skins in Carolina!Either he breaks, or shoots almost as deadAs Anne Regina;While the deep-field-gun, trained upon yourstumps,From concrete grand-stand far beyond thebound'ry,Lifts up his ugly mouth and fairly pumpsShells from Krupp's foundry.But like the time the game is out of joint —No screen, and too much mud for cricketlover;Both legs go slip, and there's sufficient pointIn extra cover!Cricket? 'Tis Sanscrit to the super-Hun —Cheap cross between Caligula and Cassius,To whom speech, prayer, and warfare are allone —Equally gaseous!Playing a game's beyond him and his hordes;Theirs but to play the snake or wolf orvulture:Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord'sThan all their Kultur…Sinks a torpedoed Phoebus from our sight;Over the field of play see darkness stealing;Only in this one game, against the lightThere's no appealing.Now for their flares… and now at last thestars…Only the stars now, in their heavenly million,Glisten and blink for pity on our scarsFrom the Pavilion.

LAST POST

(1915)

LAST summer, centuries ago,I watched the postman's lantern glow,As night by night on leaden feetHe twinkled down our darkened street.So welcome on his beaten track,The bent man with the bulging sack!But dread of every sleepless couch,A whistling imp with leathern pouch!And now I meet him in the way,And earth is Heaven, night is Day,For oh! there shines before his lampAn envelope without a stamp!Address in pencil; overhead,The Censor's triangle in red.Indoors and up the stair I bound:One from the boy, still safe, still sound!"Still merry in a dubious trenchThey've taken over from the French;Still making light of duty done;Still full of Tommy, Fritz, and fun!Still finding War of games the cream,And his platoon a priceless team —Still running it by sportsman's rule,Just as he ran his house at school."Still wild about the 'bombing stunt'He makes his hobby at the front.Still trustful of his wondrous luck —Prepared to take on old man Kluck!'"Awed only in the peaceful spells,And only scornful of their shells,His beaming eye yet found delightIn ruins lit by flares at night,In clover field and hedgerow green,Apart from cover or a screen,In Nature spurting spick-and-spanFor all the devilries of Man.He said those weeks of blood and tearsWere worth his score of radiant years.He said he had not lived before —Our boy who never dreamt of War!He gave us of his own dear glow,Last summer, centuries ago.Bronzed leaves still cling to every bough.I don't waylay the postman now.Doubtless upon his nightly beatHe still comes twinkling down our street.I am not there with straining eye —A whistling imp could tell you why.

THE OLD BOYS

(1917)

WHO is the one with the empty sleeve?""Some sport who was in the swim.""And the one with the ribbon who's home onleave?""Good Lord! I remember him!A hulking fool, low down in the school,And no good at games was he —All fingers and thumbs – and very few chums.(I wish he'd shake hands with me!)""Who is the one with the heavy stick,Who seems to walk from the shoulder?""Why, many's the goal you have watched himkick!""He's looking a lifetime older.Who is the one that's so full of fun —I never beheld a blither —Yet his eyes are fixt as the furrow betwixt?""He cannot see out of either,""Who are the ones that we cannot see,Though we feel them as near as near?In Chapel one felt them bend the knee,At the match one felt them cheer.In the deep still shade of the Colonnade,In the ringing quad's full light,They are laughing here, they are chaffing there,Yet never in sound or sight.""Oh, those are the ones who never shall leave,As they once were afraid they would!They marched away from the school at eve,But at dawn came back for good,With deathless blooms from uncoffin'd tombsTo lay at our Founder's shrine.As many are they as ourselves to-day,And their place is yours and mine.""But who are the ones they can help or harm?""Each small boy, never so new,Has an Elder Brother to take his arm,And show him the thing to do —And the thing to resist with a doubled fist,If he'd be nor knave nor fool —And the Game to play if he'd tread the wayOf the School behind the school."

RUDDDY YOUNG GINGER

(1915)

RUDDY young Ginger was somewhere in camp,War broke it up in a day,Packing cadets of the steadier stampHome with the smallest delay.Ginger braves town in his O.T.C. rags —Beards a Staff Marquis – the limb!Saying, "Your son, Sir, is one of my fags,"Gets a Commission through him.Then to his tailor's for khaki complet;Then to Pall Mall for a sword;Lastly, a wire to his people to say,"Left school – joined the Line – are youbored?"And it was a bit cool(A term's fees in the poolBy a rule of the school).There were those who said "Fool!"Of young Ginger.Ruddy young Ginger! Who gave him that name?Tommies who had his own nerve!"Into 'im, Ginger!" was heard in a gameWith a neighbouring Special Reserve.Blushing and grinning and looking fifteen,Ginger, with howitzer punt,Bags his man's wind as succinctly and cleanAs he hopes to bag Huns at the front.Death on recruits who fall out by the way,Sentries who yawn at their post,Yet he sang such a song at the Y.M.C.A.That the C.O. turned green as a ghost!Less the song than the stance,And the dissolute dance,Drew a glance so askanceThat… they packed him to France,Little Ginger.Next month, to the haunts of fine Ladies andLordsI ventured, in Grosvenor Square:The stateliest chambers were hospital wards —And ruddy young Ginger was there.In spite of his hurts he looked never so red,Nor ever less shy or sedate,Though his hair had been cropped (by machine-gun, he said)And bandages turbaned his pate.He was mostly in holes – but his cheek wasintact!I could not but notice, with joy,The loveliest Sisters had most to transactWith ruddy young Ginger – some boy!Slaying Huns by the tons,With a smile like a nun's —Oh! of all the brave ones,All the sons of our guns —Give me Ginger!

THE BALLAD OF ENSIGN JOY

I T is the story ofEnsign JoyAnd the obsoleterank withalThat I love for each gentle EnglishboyWho jumped to his country'scall.By their fire and fun, and thedeeds they've done,I would gazette them Second tononeWho faces a gun in Gaul!)IT is also the story of ErmyntrudeA less appropriate nameFor the dearest prig and theprettiest prude!But under it, all the same,The usual consanguineous squadHad made her an honest childof God —And left her to play the game.IT was just when the grind ofthe Special Reserves,Employed upon Coast Defence,Was getting on every Ensign'snerves —Sick-keen to be draftedhence —That they met and played tennisand danced and sang,The lad with the laugh and theschoolboy slang,The girl with the eyes intense. YET it wasn't for him that shelanguished and sighed,But for all of our dear deemedyouth;And it wasn't for her, but hersex, that he cried,If he could but have probedthe truth !Did she? She would none of hishot young heart;As khaki escort he's tall andsmart,As lover a shade uncouth.HE went with his draft. Shereturned to her craft.He wrote in his merry vein:She read him aloud, and theStudio laughed!Ermyntrude bore the strain.He was full of gay bloodshed andOld Man Fritz:His flippancy sent her friendsinto fits.Ermyntrude frowned withpain.HIS tales of the Sergeant whoswore so hardLeft Ermyntrude cold andprim;The tactless truth of the picturejarred,And some of his jokes weregrim.Yet, let him but skate upontender ice,And he had to write to her twiceor thriceBefore she would answer him.YET once she sent him afairy's box,And her pocket felt the bruntOf tinned contraptions andbooks and socks —Which he hailed as "a sportingstunt!"She slaved at his muffler nonethe less,And still took pleasure in mur-muring, "Yes!For a friend of mine at theFront.")ONE fine morning his nameappears —Looking so pretty in print!"Wounded!" she warbles intragedy tears —And pictures the reddeninglint,The drawn damp face and thedraggled hair.But she found him blooming inGrosvenor Square,With a punctured shin in asplint.IT wasn't a haunt of Ermyn-trude's,That grandiose urban pile;Like starlight in arctic altitudesWas the stately Sister's smile.It was just the reverse withEnsign Joy —In his golden greeting no leastalloy —In his shining eyes no guile!HE showed her the bullet thatdid the trick —He showed her the trick,x-ray'd;He showed her a table timed toa tick,And a map that an airmanmade.He spoke of a shell that caused grievous loss —But he never mentioned a certaincrossFor his part in the escapade!SHE saw it herself in a list nextday,And it brought her back to hisbed,With a number of beautifulthings to say,Which were mostly over hishead.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 youdidn't retire!""My blighters were not thatkind.""But it says you 'advanced un-der murderous fire,Machine-gun and shell com-bined – '""Oh, that's the regular WarOffice wheeze!""'Advanced' – with that leg! —'on his hands and knees'!""I couldn't leave it behind."HE was soon trick-driving aninvalid chair,and dancing about on a crutch;The haute noblesse of GrosvenorSquareFelt bound to oblige as such;They sent him for many a motor-whirl —With the wistful, willowy wisp ofa girlWho never again lost touch.THEIR people were most ofthem dead and gone.They had only themselves toHis pay was enough to marryupon,As every Ensign sees.They would muddle along (asin fact they did)With vast supplies of the tertiumquidYou bracket with bread-and-cheese.please.THEY gave him some leaveafter Grosvenor Square —And bang went a month onbanns;For Ermyntrude had a naturalflairFor the least unusual plans.Her heaviest uncle came downwell,And entertained, at a fair hotel,The dregs of the coupled clans.A CERTAIN number ofcheques accruedTo keep the wolf from thedoor:The economical ErmyntrudeHad charge of the dwindlingstore,When a Board reported herbridegroom fitAs – some expression she didn'tpermit.And he left for the Front oncemore.HIS crowd had been climbingthe jaws of hell:He found them in death's dog-teeth,With little to show but a gooddeal to tellIn their fissure of smokingheath.There were changes – of course– but the change in himWas the ribbon that showed onhis tunic trimAnd the tumult hidden be-neath!FOR all he had suffered andseen beforeSeemed nought to a husband'scare;And the Chinese puzzle of mod-ern warFor subtlety couldn't compareWith the delicate springs of thecomplex lifeTo be led with a highly sensitisedwifeIn a slightly rarefied air!YET it's good to be back withthe old platoon —"A man in a world of men"!Each cheery dog is a henchmanboon —Especially Sergeant Wren!Ermyntrude couldn't endure hisname —Considered bad language no lienon fame,Yet it's good to – hear itagain!BETTER to feel the Ser-geant's grip,Though your fingers ache tothe bone!Better to take the Sergeant's tipThan to make up your mindalone.They can do things together, canWren and Joy —The bristly bear and the beard-less boy —That neither could do on hisown.BUT there's never a wordabout Old Man WrenIn the screeds he scribblesto-day —Though he praises his N.C.O.'sand menIn rather a pointed way.And he rubs it in (with a knittedbrow)That the war's as good as a pic-nic now,And better than any play!HIS booby-hutch is "as safeas the Throne,"And he fares "like the C. – in-Chief,"But has purchased "a top-holegramophoneBy way of comic relief."(And he sighs as he hears themen applaud,While the Woodbine spices arewafted abroadWith the odour of bully-beef.)HE may touch on the latesttype of bomb,But Ermyntrude needn'tblench,For he never says where you hurlit from,And it might be from yourtrench.He never might lead a stealthyband,Or toe the horrors of No Man'sLand,Or swim at the sickly stench..HER letters came up byration-cartAs the men stood-to beforedawn:He followed the chart of hersoaring heartWith face transfigured yetdrawn:It filled him with pride, touchedwith chivalrous shame.But – it spoilt the war, as a first-class game,For this particular pawn.THE Sergeant sees it, anddamns the causeIn a truly terrible flow;But turns and trounces, withouta pause,A junior N. C. O.For the crime of agreeing thatEnsign JoyIsn't altogether the officer boyThat he was four months ago!AT length he's dumfounded(the month being May)By a sample of Ermyntrude'sfun!"You will kindly get leave overChristmas Day,Or make haste and finish theBut Christmas means presents,she bids him beware:"So what do you say to a son andheir?I'm thinking of giving youHun!"WHAT, indeed, does theEnsign 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 piteousprayers? —"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, delicatedear,As brave as the very best!We stand or fall in a cheerycrowd,And yet how often we grousealoud!She faces that with a jest!"HE has had no sleep for a dayand a night;He has written her half aream;He has Iain him down to wait forthe light,And at last come sleep – and adream.He's hopping on sticks up thestudio stair:A telegraph-boy is waiting there,And – that is his darling'sscream!HE picks her up in a tenderstorm —But how does it come to passThat he cannot see his reflectedformWith hers in the studio glass?"What's wrong with that mir-ror?"' he cries.But only the Sergeant's voicereplies:"Wake up, Sir! The Gas —the Gas!"IS it a part of the dream ofdread?What are the men about?Each one sticking a hauntedheadInto a spectral clout!Funny, the dearth of gibe andjoke,When each one looks like a pigin a poke,Not omitting the snout!THERE'S your mask, Sir! Notime to lose!"Ugh, what a gallows shape!Partly white cap, and partlynoose!Somebody ties the tape.Goggles of sorts, it seems, inset:Cock them over the parapet,Study the battlescape.ENSIGN JOY'S in the secondline —And more than a bit cut off;A furlong or so down a greeninclineThe fire-trench curls in thetrough.Joy cannot see it – it's in the bedOf a river of poison that brimsinstead.He can only hear – a cough!NOTHING to do for theCompanies there —Nothing but waiting now,While the Gas rolls up on thebalmy air,And a small bird cheeps on abough.All of a sudden the sky seems fullOf trusses of lighted cotton-woolAnd the enemy's big bow-wow!THE firmament cracks withhis airy mines,And an interlacing hailThreshes the clover between ourlines,As a vile invisible flail.And the trench has become amighty viceThat holds us, in skins of moltenice,For the vapors that fringe theveil.IT'S coming – in billowy swirls– as smokeFrom the roof a world on fire.It – comes! And a lad with aheart of oakKnows only that heart's de-sire!His masked lips whimper but onedear name —And so is he lost to inward shameThat he thrills at the word:"Re-tire!"WHOSE is the order, thricerenewed?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 shamerevealsA way of saving his face:He twirls his stick to a shep-herd's crook,To trip and bring one of themback to book,As though he'd been givingchase!HE got back gasping —"They'd too much start!""I'd've shot 'em instead!"said Wren."That was your job, Sir, if you'dthe 'eart —But it wouldn't 've been you,then.I pray my Lord I may live to seeA firing-party in front o' themthree!"(That's what he said to themen.)NOW, Joy and Wren, ofCompany B,Are a favourite firm of mine;And the way they reinforced A,C, and DWas, perhaps, not unduly fine;But it meant a good deal both toWren and Joy —That grim, gaunt man, but thatdesperate 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 ribbonyou wear?""It – must have been eaten awayby 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 acknowledgehis sin!He has dared to face Wren witha lying boast —But Wren is not taken in.None sings his praises so longand loud —With look so loving and loyaland proud!But the boy sees under hisskin.DAILY and gaily he wrote tohis wife,Who had dropped the beati-fied drollAnd was writing to him on theMeaning of LifeAnd the Bonds between Bodyand Soul.Her courage was high – thoughshe mentioned its height;She was putting upon her theArmour of Light —Including her aureole!BUT never a helm had the ladwe know,As he went on his nightly raidsWith a brace of his Blighters, anN. G O.And a bagful of hand-grenadesAnd the way he rattled andharried the Hun —The deeds he did dare, and therisks he would run —Were the gossip of the Bri-gades.HOW he'd stand stockstill asthe trunk of a tree,With his face tucked downout of sight,When a flare went up and theother threeFell prone in the frighteninglight.How the German sandbags, thatmade them quake,Were the only cover he cared totake,But he'd eavesdrop there allnight.MACHINE-GUNS, tappinga phrase in Morse,Grew hot on a random quest,And swarms of bullets buzzeddown the courseLike wasps from a tramplednest.Yet, that last night!They had just set offWhen he pitched on his face witha smothered cough,And a row of holes in his chest.HE left a letter. It savedthe livesOf the three who ran from theGas;A small enclosure alone survives,In Middlesex, under glass:Only the ribbon that left hisbreastOn the day he turned and ranwith the rest,And lied with a lip of brass!BUT the letters they wroteabout the boy,From the Brigadier to themen!They would never forget dearMr. Joy,Not look on his like again.Ermyntrude read them with dry,proud eye.There was only one letter thatmade 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 daringplan,Or some treat for his men andme.There wasn't his match when hewent away;But since he got back, there hasnot been a dayBut what he has earned aV. CA CYNICAL story? That'snot my view.The years since he fell aretwain.What were his chances of comingthrough?Which of his friends remain?But Ermyntrude's training asplendid boyTwenty years younger than En-sign Joy.On balance, a British gain!AND Ermyntrude, did shelose her allOr find it, two years ago?O young girl-wives of the boyswho fall,With your youth and yourbabes to show!No heart but bleeds for yourwidowhood.Yet Life is with you, and Life isgood.No bone of your bone lies low!YOUR blessedness came – asit went – in a day.Deep dread but heightenedyour mirth.Your idols' feet never turned toclay —Never lit upon common earth.Love is the Game but is not theGoal:You played it together, body andsoul,And you had your Candle'sworth.YES! though the Candle lighta Shrine,And heart cannot count thecost,You are Winners yet in its tendershine!Would they choose to havelived and lost?There are chills, you see, for thefinest hearts;But, once it is only old Deaththat parts,There can never come twingeof frost.AND this be our comfort forEvery BoyCut down in his high heyday,Or ever the Sweets of the Morn-ing cloy,Or the Green Leaf witheraway;So a sunlit billow curls to a crest,And shouts as it breaks at itsloveliest,In a glory of rainbow spray!BE it also the making ofErmyntrude,And many a hundred more —Compact of foibles and forti-tude —Woo'd, won, and widow'd, inWar.God, keep us gallant and unde-filed,Worthy of Husband, Lover, or– Child…Sweet as themselves at thecore!

BOND AND FREE

(The Bapaume Road, March 1917)

MISTY and pale the sunlight, brittle and black thetrees;Roads powdered like sticks of candy for a car tocrunch as they freeze…Then we overtook a Battalion… and it wasn'ta roadway then,But cymbals and drums and dulcimers to thebeat of the marching men!They were laden and groomed for the trenches,they were shaven and scrubbed and fed;Like the scales of a single Saurian their helmetsrippled ahead;Not a sorrowful face beneath them, just the tailof a scornful eyeFor the car full of favoured mufti that wentquacking and quaking by.You gloat and take note in your motoring coat,and the sights come fast and thick:A party of pampered prisoners, toying with shoveland pick;A town where some of the houses are so manyheaps of stone,And some of them steel anatomies picked cleanto the buckled bone.A road like a pier in a hurricane of mountainousseas of mud,Where a few trees, whittled to walking-sticks, roseout of the frozen floodLike the masts of the sunken villages that mighthave been down below —Or blown off the festering face of an earth thatGod Himself wouldn't know!Not a yard but was part of a shell-hole – not aninch, to be more precise —And most of the holes held water, and all thewater was ice:They stared at the bleak blue heavens like theglazed blue eyes of the slain,Till the snow came, shutting them gently, andsheeting the slaughtered plain.Here a pile of derelict rifles, there a couple ofhorses lay —Like rockerless rocking-horses, as wooden of legas they,And not much redder of nostril – not anythinglike so grimAs the slinking ghoul of a lean live cat creepingover the crater's rim!And behind and beyond and about us were thelong black Dogs of War,With pigmies pulling their tails for them, andmaking the monsters roarAs they slithered back on their haunches, as theyput out their flaming tongues,And spat a murderous message long leagues fromtheir iron lungs!They were kennelled in every corner, and somewere in gay disguise,But all kept twitching their muzzles and bayingthe silvery skies!A howitzer like a hyena guffawed point-blank atthe car —But only the sixty – pounder leaves an absoluteaural scar!(Could a giant but crack a cable as a stockmancracks his whip,Or tear up a mile of calico with one unthinkabler-r-r-r-rip!Could he only squeak a slate-pencil about thesize of this gun,You might get some faint idea of its sound, whichis those three sounds in one.)But certain noises were absent, we looked forsome sights in vain,And I cannot tell you if shrapnel does reallydescend like rain —Or Big Stuff burst like a bonfire, or bulletswhistle or moan;But the other figures I'll swear to – if some of'em are my own!Livid and moist the twilight, heavy with snowthe trees,And a road as of pleated velvet the colour of newcream-cheese…Then we overtook a Battalion… and I'mhunting still for the wordFor that gaunt, undaunted, haunted, whitening,frightening herd!They had done their tour of the trenches, theywere coated and caked with mud,And some of them wore a bandage, and some ofthem wore their blood!The gaps in their ranks were many, and none ofthem looked at me…And I thought of no more vain phrases for thethings I was there to see,But I felt like a man in a prison van where therest of the world goes Free.

SHELL-SHOCK IN ARRAS

ALL night they crooned high overheadAs the skies are over men:I lay and smiled in my cellar bed,And went to sleep again.All day they whistled like a lashThat cracked in the trembling town:I stood and listened for the crashOf houses thundering down.In, in they came, three nights and days,All night and all day long;It made us learned in their waysAnd experts on their song.Like a noisy clock, or a steamer's screw,Their beat debauched the ear,And left it dead to a deafening fewThat burst who cared how near?We only laughed when the flimsy floorHeaved on the shuddering sod:But when some idiot slammed a door —My God!

THE BIG THING

(1918)

IT WAS a British Linesman. His face was like afist,His sleeve all stripes and chevrons from theelbow to the wrist.Said he to an American (with other words of his):"It's a big thing you are doing – do you knowhow big it is?""I guess, Sir," that American inevitably drawled,"Big Bill's our proposition an' we're goin' for himbald.You guys may have him rattled, but I figure it'sfor usTo slaughter, quarter, grill or bile, an' masticatethe cuss.""I hope your teeth," the Linesman said, "areequal to your tongue —But that's the sort of carrion that's better whenit's hung.Yet – the big thing you're doing I should like tomake you see!""Our stunt," said that young Yankee, "is to setthe whole world free!"The Linesman used a venial verb (and other partsof speech):"That's just the way the papers talk andpoliticians preach!But apart from gastronomical designs upon theHun —And the rather taller order – there's a big thingthat you've done.""Why, say! The biggest thing on earth, to anycute onlooker,Is Old Man Bull and Uncle Sam aboard thesame blamed hooker!One crew, one port, one speed ahead, steel-truetwin-hearts within her:One ding-dong English-singin' race – a racewithout a winner!"The boy's a boyish mixture – half high-brow andhalf droll:So brave and naïve and cock-a-hoop – so sureyet pure of soul!Behold him bright and beaming as the bride-groom after church —The Linesman looking wistful as a rival in thelurch!"I'd love to be as young as you – " he doesn'teven swear —"Love to be joining up anew and spoiling for myshare!But when your blood runs cold and old, and brainand bowels squirm,The only thing to ease you is some fresh blood inthe firm."When the war was young, and we were young,we felt the same as you:A few short months of glory – and we didn't carehow few!French, British and Dominions, it took us all thesame —Who knows but what the Hun himself enjoyedhis dirty game!"We tumbled out of tradesmen's carts, we fell offoffice stools;Fathers forsook their families, boys ran away fromschools;Mothers untied their apron-strings, lovers un-loosed their arms —All Europe was a wedding and the bells werewar's alarms!"The chime had changed – You took a pull – theold wild peal rings onWith the clamour and the glamour of a Genera-tion gone.Their fun – their fire – their hearts' desire – areborn again in You!""That the big thing we're doin'?""It's as big as Man can do!"