GRUB'S UP! (WORLD WAR ONE)
Grub in the trenches , not something to be enjoyedMore suffered
The army put it about we'd get two hot meals a day
Taking the piss weren't they!
Sure the food were hot when it left the cook house!
By the time the grub had been put in to old oil cans
Cooking pans , jars ,if the cooks had them to spare
Taken up to us in the front line , well in the summer or spring
The gub may be at best lukewarm
Come the winter! Then , the grub be cold , ice forming on the stew
Stew , I say stew! The army took the piss , did that a lot!
It were more likely to be maconochies! Canned soup , not Hinze
Or Cambels!
How we looked foreword to parcels from home , home brands
Cadburys Bournville chocolate , fruitcake cake from the local bakers
As we shared the rough and smooth with each other
We shared our comforts from home
Maconchies , a watery broth , turnips , carrots , some times a little meet ,
Only some times , they said it were beef , or mutton , likely story!
More horse more than likely! Grease , fat floated in lumps sloped , dumped in to our mess tins a very undesirable dish!
Army biscuits , Huntley & Palmers , many a Tommys teeth broke trying to eat Them , had to socked in water , AND boiled , then mashed , even then , not Eatable , proper like!.
Jame spread on that could bee eaten , in summer , the Ticklers jam plum and apple jam , or Ticklers marmalade
Attacked fly's by their thousands , lads got the trots , the runs , running to over full latrines!
Hot meals , which was rather rare , it could be tolerated , just, but usually cold Thats now thats story , let me tell you!
Dished up by the N C O's , well slapped up , I should say in to our mess tins
Some of us had Tommy cookers , some made there own arrangements
''Obtaining'' , something from the local town or village
Cutting out a hollow in the side of the trench , putting the grub in a oil can
Worming it up on a fire , wood scrounge , found laying about
It came out as fast , if not quicker as it went down , the latrines soon full
Those on fatigue , soon deployed , digging new latrines
Some times at night a Tommy , court short , fell in to the latrine
When a wiz bang or something bigger landed to close by , coursing
The unfortunate Tommy to be blown in to the latrine , some pulled out covered
In shit!
Others just died drowned in shit!
How can I forger bully beef , corn dog , corned beef , became as common muck
In the trenches.
Come summer , when the heat of the day was high , it slipped and slided in the can Turned in to a kind of sludge
At Gallipoli , the Dardanelles , the Turks through over to our lads figs
Our lads though back tins of bully , the Turks , soon through the cans back
Friendly enemies you could say , though the bully put a strain on that I recon!
The thing is , those who go off to war end up having more in common with those they are sent to kill , than those back home
Such is war for those who are sent to fight , die in them or survive them
Ken D Williams
The Dyslexic Wordsmith
Poetry by ken d williams
Read 754 times
Written on 2014-03-12 at 17:52
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