SERGEANT-MAJOR MONEY

(1917)

It wasn't our battalion, but we lay alongside it,

So the story is as true as the telling is frank.

They hadn't one Line-officer left, after Arras,

Except a batty major and the Colonel, who drank.

'B' Company Commander was fresh from the Depôt,

An expert on gas drill, otherwise a dud;

So Sergeant-Major Money carried on, as instructed,

And that's where the swaddies began to sweat blood.

His Old Army humour was so well-spiced and hearty

That one poor sod shot himself, and one lost his wits;

But discipline's maintained, and back in rest-billets

The Colonel congratulates 'B' Company on their kits.

The subalterns went easy, as was only natural

With a terror like Money driving the machine,

Till finally two Welshmen, butties from the Rhondda,

Bayoneted their bugbear in a field-canteen.

Well, we couldn't blame the officers, they relied on Money;

We couldn't blame the pitboys, their courage was grand;

Or, least of all, blame Money, an old stiff surviving

In a New (bloody) Army he couldn't understand.

[From Welchman’s Hose (1925)]