I R.N.Di Copyright© Leonard Sellers, 2000. ISSN. 1368-499X It might not always be possible to trace the copyright holders of all the material I will quote, and I would be pleased to hearfrom any such persons to whom this applies. The picture on the front cover is of recruits at Crystal Palace. From "With The Royal Naval Division On Board HMS.Crystal Palace & Elsewhere." Souvenir No 2. Published by W.H. Smith & Son (Arden Press). I would like to thank Bill Hinchcliffeof Suffolk for making this reproduction possible. The R.N.D. is produced and designed at Honeysuckle House, 17a Bellhouse Road, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. SS9 5NL. (Telephone 01 702 521550) E. Mail:-
[email protected] AT THE DUMP Lines to the N.C. 0. in charge By Lieutenant A.P. Herbert. Hawke Battalion. Now is the hour of dusk and mist and midges, Now the tired planes drone homeward Through the haze, And Distant wood-fireswink behind the ridges, And the firstflare some timorous Hun Betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily, and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with a man like you. How strange a spectacle of human passions Is yours all day beside the Arras road, What mournfulmen concerned about their rations When here at eve the limbers leave their load; What twilight blasphemy, what horses' feet Entangled with the meat, What sudden hush when the machine-gun sweeps, And - flat as possible for men so round - The Quartermasters may be seen in heaps, While you sit still and chuckle, I'll be bound! 1141.