SpokenVerse | The Volunteer by Robert Service (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded August 2014 | Updated October 2024, 12 hours ago.
Robert Service actually was 41 when World War I broke out; he enlisted but was turned down for health reasons. He became a war correspondent but came close to being executed for espionage. Then he joined the Red Cross and drove an ambulance carrying men out of battlefields. His brother Albert was killed in action in France.
Robert Service received medals for his war service: the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
The illustrations are posters used to manipulate men into volunteering, evoking guilt, shame and cowardice e.g. "Why are you stopping here when your pals are out there?"
H.G. Wells called them 'ridiculous placards and street corner insults'. George Orwell said: 'I have often laughed to think of that recruiting poster and all the men who must have been lured into the army...and afterwards despised by their children for not being conscientious objectors.'
This poem is from Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, 1916
ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Service/rhymesTC.html
Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?
No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' -- let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and the little 'uns,
Why, even I might shout "God save the King",
And face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on the way;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:
The wife and nippers, wot of 'em, I say,
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue was passin' me,
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And -- well, I couldn't look 'em in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.
I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go, Bill, gotta go.
Robert Service actually was 41 when World War I broke out; he enlisted but was turned down for health reasons. He became a war correspondent but came close to being executed for espionage. Then he joined the Red Cross and drove an ambulance carrying men out of battlefields. His brother Albert was killed in action in France.
Robert Service received medals for his war service: the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
The illustrations are posters used to manipulate men into volunteering, evoking guilt, shame and cowardice e.g. "Why are you stopping here when your pals are out there?"
H.G. Wells called them 'ridiculous placards and street corner insults'. George Orwell said: 'I have often laughed to think of that recruiting poster and all the men who must have been lured into the army...and afterwards despised by their children for not being conscientious objectors.'
This poem is from Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, 1916
ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Service/rhymesTC.html
Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?
No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' -- let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and the little 'uns,
Why, even I might shout "God save the King",
And face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on the way;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:
The wife and nippers, wot of 'em, I say,
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue was passin' me,
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And -- well, I couldn't look 'em in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.
I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go, Bill, gotta go.
