The chorus of Rice's song, occasionally altered in various small ways, seems to have been one of the best known "trench songs" of the war in the English-speaking armies. It was still being sung in WW2.

Lines 3 and 4 go to a melody very much like that of lines 3 and 4 of "Bless 'em All."

Rice, a post-war vaudeville performer in Canada and the U.S., penned several wartime hits. Testimony and circumstantial evidence strongly suggest that he and E. C. H. Rowland created, but never copyrighted, "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" for a behind-the-lines concert party early in 1915.