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Edward Dyson - The Happy Gardeners
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We were storemen, clerks and packers on 
   an ammunition dump 
Twice the size of Cootamundra, and the goods 
   we had to hump 
They were bombs as big as water-butts, and 
   cartridges in tons, 
Shells that looked like blessed gasmains, and 
   a line in traction-guns. 

We had struck a warehouse dignity in dealing 
   with the stocks. 
It was, “Sign here, Mr. Eddie!” “Clarkson, 
   forward to the socks!” 
Our floor-walker was a major, with a nozzle 
   like a peach, 
And a stutter in his Trilbies; and a limping 
   kind of speech. 

We were off at eight to business, we were free 
   for lunch at one, 
And we talked of new Spring fashions, and the 
   brisk trade being done. 
After five we sought our dugouts lying snug 
   beneath the hill, 
Each with hollyhocks before it and geraniums 
   on the sill. 

Singing “Home, Sweet home,” we swept, 
   and scrubbed, and dusted up the place, 
Then smoked out on the doorstep in the twi- 
   light`s tender grace. 
After which with spade and rake we sought 
   our special garden plot, 
And we `tended to the cabbage and the shrink- 
   ing young shallot. 

So long lived we unmolested that this seemed 
   indeed “the life.” 
Set apart from mirk and worry and the inci- 
   dence of strife; 
And we trimmed our Kitchen Eden, swapping 
   vegetable lore, 
Whi1e the whole demented world beside was 
   muddled up with war. 

There was little talk of Boches and of bloody 
   battle scenes, 
But a deal about Bill`s spuds and Billy 
   Carkeek`s butter-beans; 
Porky specialised on onion and he had a sort 
   of gift 
For a cabbage plump and tender that it took 
   two men to lift. 

In the pleasant Sabbath morning, when the 
   sun lit on our “street,” 
And illumed the happy dugout with effulgence 
   kind and sweet, 
It was fine to see us forking, raking, picking 
   off the bugs, 
Treading flat the snails and woodlice and 
   demolishing the slugs. 

Then one day old Fritz got going. He had 
   a hint of us, 
And the shell the blighter posted was as roomy 
   as a `bus; 
He was groping round the dump, and kind of 
   pecking after it; 
When he plugged the hill the world heeled up, 
   the dome of heaven split. 

Then, 0 Gott and consternation! Swooped a 
   shell a and stuck her nose 
In Carkeek`s beans. Those beans came up! 
   A cry of grief arose! 
As we watched them—plunk! another shell 
   cut loose, and everywhere 
Flew the spuds of Billy Murphy. There were 
   turnips in the air. 

Bill! she tore a quarter-acre from the land- 
   scape. With it burst 
Tommy`s carrots, and we watched them, and 
   in whispers prayed and cursed. 
Then a wail of anguish `scaped us. Boomed 
   in Porky`s cabbage plot 
A detestable concussion. Porky`s cabbages 
   were not! 

There the Breaking strain was reached, for 
   Porky fetched an awful cry, 
And he rushed away and armed himself. 
   With loathing in his eye, 
Up and over went the hero. He was savage 
   Through and through, 
And he tore across the distance like a mad- 
   dened kangaroo. 

They had left a woeful sight indeed—frail cab- 
   bages all rent, 
Turnips mangled, little carrots all in one red 
   burial blent, 
Parsnips ruined, lettuce shattered, torn and 
   wilted beet and bean, 
And a black and grinning gap where once our 
   garden flourished green. 
 
Five and fifty hours had passed when came a 
   German in his shirt. 
On his back he carried Porky black with 
   blood, and smoke and dirt. 
“I sniped six of `em,” said Porky, “an` me 
   pris`ner here,” he sez- 
“I done in the crooel swine what strafed me 
   helpless cabba-ges.”
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