Poem - Anonymous

The Nurse Without a Smile

By Private Bert Smythe of Jerilderie, writing from Birmingham hospital

(By an anonymous author - 23 July 1915)

When the boys were in the trenches, they 

Private Bert Smythe

     were grinning all the while,
For the motto of Australia is to take it 
     with a smile:
Grisley Death was there beside, and they 
     took him as a Joke,
As they held their places blithely in the 
     line that never broke:
When the bullet found its billet, and it 
     left them limp and weak,
They could always raise a chuckle, though 
     they felt too sick to speak;
And, lying in the hospital, they said: “It 
     might be worse
Than stopping here to try and raise a 
     giggle from the nurse,”
The shrapnel of the enemy made gaps 
     along the line;
But it never stopped the smiling, never 
     made the boys resign
Their title clear to laughter, as trench by 
     trench they won,
And said, ”A fellow has to laugh to see 
     those beggars run.”
They quizzed the stretcher-carriers with, 
     “Cabby, what’s your fare?
I’ll tell my clerk to write a cheque as soon 
     as we get there.”
And Bertie, in the hospital, still helped 
     his side to win
When he was working overtime to make 
     the nurses grin. 
Our brave Australian boys went out 
     to storm the Turkish fort,
To do the thing in Battle that they used 
     to do in sport;
Though the nation was decadent, as we’ve 
     heard the wowsers say
The world has got a different tale to tell 
     of them to-day.
“They never could be serious,” the 
     Jeremiahs cried;
 “Not us,” the soldiers answered; and they 
     laughed, and fought, and died;
Beneath the keen and callous stars, on 
     every death-strewn hill
They lie with clay-cold faces that are 
     smiling, smiling still. 
They blazed a rough and bloody track to 
     heights of endless fame;
They charged, and laughed, and charged 
     again, and counted it a game;
And when, in hard won trenches, they 
     could get a moment’s rest,
Along the line from flank to flank, they 
     swept a rippling jest,
White Fear, that rode across the night, 
     unnoticed passed them by,
As every gay battalion sent its laughter to 
     the sky; 
No man is heard in agony his evil luck to 
     curse,
While Bertie from Jerilderie pokes borak 
     at the nurse.