He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,--loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.
An officer came blundering down the trench: "Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went....
Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step ... counter-attack!"
Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; And stumbling figures looming out in front.
"O Christ, they"re coming at us!" Bullets spat, And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ...
And started blazing wildly ... then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans....
Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.
THE EFFECT
"The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so many dead before."
_War Correspondent._
"_He"d never seen so many dead before._"
They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore And gasped and lugged his everlasting load Of bombs along what once had been a road.
"_How peaceful are the dead._"
Who put that silly gag in some one"s head?
"_He"d never seen so many dead before._"
The lilting words danced up and down his brain, While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.
No, no; he wouldn"t count them any more....
The dead have done with pain: They"ve choked; they can"t come back to life again.
When d.i.c.k was killed last week he looked like that, Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, After the blazing crump had knocked him flat....
"_How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
Don"t count "em; they"re too many.
Who"ll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?_"
REMORSE
Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, "Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders, Remembering how he saw those Germans run, Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one Livid with terror, clutching at his knees....
Our chaps were sticking "em like pigs.... "O h.e.l.l!"
He thought--"there"s things in war one dare not tell Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."
IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION
Quietly they set their burden down: he tried To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side.
He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, "O put my leg down, doctor, do!" (He"d got A bullet in his ankle; and he"d been shot Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, "You _must_ keep still, my lad." But he was dying.
DIED OF WOUNDS
His wet, white face and miserable eyes Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: But hoa.r.s.e and low and rapid rose and fell His troubled voice: he did the business well.
The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining, And calling out for "d.i.c.kie." "Curse the Wood!
It"s time to go; O Christ, and what"s the good?-- We"ll never take it; and it"s always raining."
I wondered where he"d been; then heard him shout, "They snipe like h.e.l.l! O d.i.c.kie, don"t go out" ...
I fell asleep ... next morning he was dead; And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed.
II
"THEY"
The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they"ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrade"s blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race.
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face."
"We"re none of us the same!" the boys reply.
"For George lost both his legs; and Bill"s stone blind; Poor Jim"s shot through the lungs and like to die; And Bert"s gone syphilitic: you"ll not find A chap who"s served that hasn"t found _some_ change."
And the Bishop said; "The ways of G.o.d are strange!"
BASE DETAILS
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, I"d live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You"d see me with my puffy petulant face, Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"
I"d say--"I used to know his father well; Yes, we"ve lost heavily in this last sc.r.a.p."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead, I"d toddle safely home and die--in bed.
LAMENTATIONS
I found him in a guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
And, all because his brother had gone West, Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling Half-naked on the floor. In my belief Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.
THE GENERAL
"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said When we met him last week on our way to the Line, Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of "em dead, And we"re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He"s a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.