64502: Sergeant-Major Money

<p dir="ltr">It wasn't our battalion, but we lay alongside it,<br>So the story is as true as the telling is frank.<br>They hadn't one Line-officer left, after Arras,<br>Except a batty major and the Colonel, who drank.<br>'B' Company Commander was fresh from the Depôt,<br>An expert on gas drill, otherwise a dud;<br>So Sergeant-Major Money carried on, as instructed,<br>And that's where the swaddies began to sweat blood.<br>His Old Army humour was so well-spiced and hearty<br>That one poor sod shot himself, and one lost his wits;<br>But discipline's maintained, and back in rest-billets<br>The Colonel congratulates 'B' Company on their kits.<br>The subalterns went easy, as was only natural<br>With a terror like Money driving the machine,<br>Till finally two Welshmen, butties from the Rhondda,<br>Bayoneted their bugbear in a field-canteen.<br>Well, we couldn't blame the officers, they relied on Money;<br>We couldn't blame the pitboys, their courage was grand;<br>Or, least of all, blame Money, an old stiff surviving<br>In a New (bloody) Army he couldn't understand.</p>