What is completely missing in this segment, really, is the fighting. I simply couldn’t find a way to describe it. I wrote a poem about the mud, but we decided not to use it as a song: just too grim. Thousands of troops died choking in it.
It was always muddy
on the farm –
We used to squelch and slip and laugh
across the farm.
The dog would wag his tail in glee
and send mud
flying over me..
But this mud gets inside your teeth
sticks in your hair
is everywhere..
It sucks your boots from off your feet
it sucks the heart right out of you
If you don’t watch
your step
across the boards
and fall
it will suck your life
and all..
Instead, I stuck to my original idea, and wrote about how it felt to them; just a glimpse of how they experienced it.. The music in this bit is brilliant. The whole tone becomes terrifying and desolate.
I used the refrain of Mum, partly because I was still thinking of them as children; and partly because I know from all the research I did that when people are in agony or dying it is their mother they call for.
MOVEMENT FOUR: WAR
NARRATOR
Then, at last, the real war started. – for the girls waiting in the dressing stations down the line.
…and the boys sweating in the trenches
SONG SEVEN: THE SILENCE
ALL GIRLS
We stood there in the silence
Beside the smooth white beds
While the guns roared in the distance
And the shells screamed overhead
We stood there in the silence
Beside the smooth white beds
While the guns roared in the distance
And the shells screamed overhead
We stood there in the silence
Beside the smooth white beds
While the guns roared in the distance
And the shells screamed overhead
We stood there in the silence
Beside the smooth white beds
While the guns roared in the distance
And the shells screamed overhead
And then they started coming
All the blood and pain and dying
All the muddy sheets and crying
And we couldn’t really help them
Very much..
Just comfort them with
Words and eyes and touch ..
Just comfort them with
Words and eyes and touch ..
It wasn’t what we thought that
It would be, Mum.
It wasn’t what we thought that it would be.
It wasn’t what we thought that
It would be, Mum.
It wasn’t what we thought that it would be.
NARRATOR
It wasn’t what we thought that it would be, either. Mud and smoke and running; bullets stinging past you in the din …I never shot my rifle in the end. I was too scared to do anything but run, blind.
SONG EIGHT: BILLY’S GONE
ALL BOYS
Mum..
Mum…
Mum…
Billy’s gone,
Billy’s gone, mum.
Mum..
Mum…
Mum…
Billy’s gone,
Billy’s gone, mum.
And I can’t find Fred…
Mum..
Mum…
Mum…
Billy’s gone,
Billy’s gone, mum.
Mum..
Mum…
Mum…
Billy’s gone,
Billy’s gone, mum.
And I can’t find Fred…
And Dot and Phoebe
How do we know
Where they are,
Mum?
Where they are, Mum..
Mum..
Mum…
Mum…
Billy’s gone,
Billy’s gone, Mum.
And I can’t find Fred…
And Dot and Phoebe
How do we know
Where they are,
Mum?
Where they are,
Mum?
I can’t see anyone..
I can’t see anything..
Mum..
Mum..
Mum..
NARRATOR
And on it went for months and months and then years and years…
The first Christmas, we had a football match with the Jerries across the trenches.. We sang carols, gave each other presents.. For a bit, everything felt all right.
But after that, just cold and dirty and lonely and missing friends. And homesick. Not scared, really, except for moments in the fighting . Just lasting till the next cigarette, and wishing for home. The worse thing was still the mud. We hated the mud more than anything.
SONG EIGHT : THERE’S A LONG, LONG TRAIL A’WINDING: (Stoddard King and Alonzo Elliott: 1914)
BOYS AND GIRLS
There’s a long, long trail a-winding
into the land of my dreams,
where the nightingales are singing
and a white moon beams:
There’s a long, long night of waiting
until my dreams all come true;
till the day when I’ll be going down
that long , long trail with you.
There’s a long, long trail a-winding
into the land of my dreams,
where the nightingales are singing
and a white moon beams:
There’s a long, long night of waiting
until my dreams all come true;
till the day when I’ll be going down
that long , long trail with you.
