A TROOPSHIP MEMORY.

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

A TROOPSHIP MEMORY.

(With apologies to the translator of Omar Khayam.)

Awake! Reveille sounds throughout the ship, Arise! and let the perspiration drip. For, 10, the sergeants, punctual call the roll Lest one should leave the ship and take a stroll. Dreaming when ones left foot was in my eye I heard a voice within the cabin cry. Awake, my little ones, and make thy beds According to instructions from "The Heads." Come make thy bed and in the latest style Thy mattress, life belt, sea kit as in ' file A different way to-day —well, what of that? All ways lead to CB and "The Mat."

Here with a bunk, beneath four decks, A towel wet—two blankets dry—and thou Beside me;cursing in the dormi-tries. And dormi-tries are more than hell enow. Think in this battered transport grey. With sentries ever blocking up the way, How sergeant after sergeant with their stripes Abode his week or two—then went, by cripes. Then in the fragrant mess-room, number two I watch an Expert show a method new And twist two blankets into monstrous shapes, And round the whole a dripping towel drapes. And that converted box we call a bunk, "Wherein, all smelling foul with sweat, are sunk Twelve hundred men in stupor (some say sleep) Think of it, oh happy ones—and weep. Ah, sir, could you with common sense conspire To save us from insanity entire, Would you not tear red tape in many shreds, And let us choose the way to make our beds ? Heliopolis "Aotean."