 | Ballads of the War |  |
80
The Bugler's Wish
“What shall we give to you, bugler boy,
For the bugle they lost in Tugela's wave
The day you fell on Colenso plain?”
And the bugler-laddie he answered brave,
“Give?—give me leave, in the Queen's employ,
To go to the Front with my bugle again!”
For the bugle they lost in Tugela's wave
The day you fell on Colenso plain?”
And the bugler-laddie he answered brave,
“Give?—give me leave, in the Queen's employ,
To go to the Front with my bugle again!”
When the Royal party were going through the wards at Netley Hospital one of the Princesses asked the little bugler Dunne, who was the first to fall wounded in the Colenso fight, and whose bugle was thrown into the Tugela as he was being carried in to the hospital tent, what mark of favour he would wish the Queen to bestow on him, and he answered cheerily, “Leave to go to the Front again!”
| Ballads of the War | |