While upon those awful stages
Throbbed a world's great piston beat,
And the moments seemed as ages
Rung from death and red defeat.
Ah, we lived, indeed, and no man
Recked of wound or any ill,
As we grimly faced the foeman--
If we died, to conquer still.
And it felt as though the burden
Of all England gave us might,
Laid on each, who asked no guerdon
But against those odds to fight.
Let the lucky get high stations
And the honour which he won,
Mac desires no decorations
But the gallant service done.
For the rankers bear the losses
And the brunt of every toil,
While they earn for others "crosses"
And the splendour and the spoil.
BOOT AND SADDLE.
BY F. HARALD WILLIAMS.
A TRUE INCIDENT IN THE MATABELE CAMPAIGN (1893).
Mashangombi's was the rat-hole,
Which we had to draw ere day,
Heedless whether this or that hole--
If we only found a way;
Up among the iron furrows
Of the rocks, where hid in burrows
Safe the rats in shelter lay.
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