E. V. Lucas, The Vermilion Box (Toronto: Copp, Clark., 1916), p. 262-63:


"My nephew Toby Starr, who is a second lieutenant at the front, has sent me an astonishing chorus, or litany, or what you will, that the men are singing. The Germans hear them, of course, but I doubt if it is sent across No Man's Land as an intimation of our own eventual bliss and the Germans' certain loss of it. I should guess not. That is not the British soldier's way, his heart being far more in conquering the enemy than in criticizing him. Indeed, I find such men from the front as I chance to meet very loth to talk about the Hun at all and rarely voluble as to his iniquities. Rather do they emphasize his merits as a fighter.

"I should guess that this odd triumphant credo, set to an old music-hall tune and springing up and spreading probably as mysteriously as a folk-song, is not a defiance of the earthly foe, but merely one more manifestation of the courageous levity that this war has drawn forth. It is Tommy's light surface way of accepting death. To do even so tremendous a thing as that without a touch of humour would not be playing the game. We get therefore trench after trench filled with men who at any moment may be blown to atoms singing these astonishing words:

' The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
    For you, but not for me.
For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling
    They've got the goods for me.
O Death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling ?
    O Grave, thy victoree!
The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
    For you, but not for me!'

"Isn't that wonderful! And incredible! It is not exactly religion, and yet it is religion. Fatalism with faith. Assurance with disdain. The very aristocracy of confidence. And only the new British soldier could sing it.

"But, I say, what material! I believe that the singing soldier is always to be dreaded, but when he sings things like that ... !"