"JUST SPLENDID."

Observer, Volume XXXVI, Issue 38, 27 May 1916, Page 22

"JUST SPLENDID."

Our lads in the trenches, our boys on the sea, • ' ' ' They're fighting our battles as keen as can be; ' But what keeps 'em supplied' with the one thing that tells Is the girls in the factories, making the shells. Come down, you that doubt, to the Midlands with me; Come along to the works, and just listen and see. Oh, the clang of the hammer—the whirr of the wheel— The glow of the copper—the glint of the steel! Each girl at her job, and each doing it well (And no simple job, either, to turn out a shell); And enjoying it, too, near as much as a dance, Head and hand hard at work—if her heart is in France! A lighted-up works makes an excellent mark For these cowardly skulkers aloft in the dark "What was that? . . . Was it only the clock striking ten? No! . \ . Listen! . . . The Hooter! . . . Again! . . Again then!' In a moment the factory's blacker than ink; Not a light left to shine through the 'tiniest chink; And the whispering workers, unheard and unseen File out of the workshop and crowd the canteen. For an hour—and another—they wait in the gloom; Some cry; but most joke, and, defiant of doom, . Send up a brave chorus, well sung and well led, As a challenge to Death, riding high overhead! Then the French refugee girls, their dark eyes ablaze, Roll out in full splendour their loved "Marsellaise" ; Till, quick as the dark came, as quick comes the light, And the foreman shouts gaily the welcome "All right!" "Lights up!" . . It's all over— the danger is past; And, as back to the workshop they hurry at last Their good-bye to the raiders they scornfully fling In the heart-lifting chorus of "God Save the King!" ". . . the men were just splendid . ." How often we read! Well, we knew they'd be tliat, when we wished 'em "God-speed!" . . . All the same, in strict fairness, I reckon—don't you?— That the girls in the workshops are "just splendid," too. Monica Cosens, in the "Daily Mail."