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                          HOW RIFLEMAN BROWN
                           CAME TO VALHALLA

                                  BY
                            GILBERT FRANKAU

                               NEW YORK
                       FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY
                                 1916

                            Copyright, 1916

                            Gilbert Frankau

                         _All rights reserved_




                  How Rifleman Brown Came to Valhalla

                          By GILBERT FRANKAU


    To the lower Hall of Valhalla, to the heroes of no renown,
    Relieved from his spell at the listening-post, came Rifleman Joseph Brown.
    With never a rent in his khaki, nor smear of blood on his face,
    He flung his pack from his shoulders and made for an empty place.
    The Killer-men of Valhalla looked up from the banquet board
    At the unfouled breech of his rifle, at the unfleshed point of his sword,
    And the unsung dead of the trenches, the kings who have never a crown,
    Demanded his pass to Valhalla from Rifleman Joseph Brown.
    “_Who comes, unhit, to the party?_” A one-legged Corporal spoke,
    And the gashed heads nodded approval through the rings of the Endless
        Smoke.
    “_Who comes for the beer and the Woodbines of the never-closed Canteen_
    _With the barrack shine on his bayonet and a full-charged magazine?_”
    Then Rifleman Brown looked round him at the nameless men of The Line,
    At the wounds of the shell and the bullet, at the burns of the bomb
        and the mine;
    At the khaki, virgin of medals but crimson-clotted of blood;
    At the ankle-boots and the puttees caked stiff with the Flanders mud;
    At the myriad short Lee-Enfields that crowded the rifle rack,
    Each with its blade to the sword-boss brown and its muzzle powder-black.
    And Rifleman Brown said never a word, but he felt in the soul of his soul
    His right to the beer of the lower Hall though he came to drink of
        it whole;
    His right to the fags of the free Canteen, to a seat at the banquet board,
    Though he came to the men who had killed their man with an unfleshed point
       to his sword.
    “_Who speaks for the stranger riflemen, O boys of the free Canteen?_
    _Who passes the chap with the unmaimed limbs and the kit that is far
        too clean?_”
    The gashed heads eyed him above their beers, the gashed lips sucked at
        their smoke;
    There were three at the board of his own platoon, but not a man of
        them spoke.
    His mouth was mad for the tankard froth and the biting whiff of a fag,
    But he knew that he might not speak for himself to the dead men who do not
       brag.
    A gun butt crashed on the portals, a man came staggering in;
    His head was cleft with a great red wound from the temple bone to
        the chin,
    His blade was dyed to the bayonet boss with the clots that were scarcely
        dry,
    And he cried to the men who had killed their man, “Who passes the
        rifleman? I!
    By the four I slew and the shell I stopped, if my feet be not too late,
    I speak the word for Rifleman Brown that a chap may speak for his
        mate!”
    The dead of lower Valhalla, the heroes of dumb renown,
    They pricked up their ears to a tale of the earth as they set their
        tankards down.
    “We were both on sentry this morning, when the General happened along.
    He asked us our job in a gas attack. Joe told him, ‘Beat on the gong.’
    ‘What else?’
        ‘Nothing else, sir,’ Joe answered.
            ‘Good God, man,’ our General said,
    ‘By the time you’d beaten that bloodstained gong the chances are you’d be
       dead.
    You’d put on your gas helmet, blast you, and you’d damn well
        put it on _first_!’
    And Joe stood dumb to attention, and wondered why he’d been cursed.”
    The gashed heads turned to the Rifleman, and now it seemed that they knew
    Why the face that had