A WORKING PARTY
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hree hours ago he blundered up the trench,Sliding and poising, groping with his boots;Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the wallsWith hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk.He couldn't see the man who walked in front;Only he heard the drum and rattle of feetStepping along the trench-boards,--often splashingWretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep. Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,--make way!"When squeezing past the men from the front-line:White faces peered, puffing a point of red;Candles and braziers glinted through the chinksAnd curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloomSwallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and sworeBecause a sagging wire had caught his neck.A flare went up; the shining whiteness spreadAnd flickered upward, showing nimble rats,And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain;Then the slow, silver moment died in dark. The wind came posting by with chilly gustsAnd buffeting at corners, piping thinAnd dreary through the crannies; rifle-shotsWould split and crack and sing along the night,And shells came calmly through the drizzling airTo burst with hollow bang below the hill. Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench;Now he will never walk that road again:He must be carried back, a jolting lumpBeyond all need of tenderness and care;A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do. He was a young man with a meagre wifeAnd two pale children in a Midland town;He showed the photograph to all his mates;And they considered him a decent chapWho did his work and hadn't much to say,And always laughed at other people's jokesBecause he hadn't any of his own. That night, when he was busy at his jobOf piling bags along the parapet,He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet,And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold. He thought of getting back by half-past twelve,And tot of rum to send him warm to sleepIn draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumesOf coke, and full of snoring, weary men. He pushed another bag along the top,Craning his body outward; then a flareGave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire;And as he dropped his head the instant splitHis startled life with lead, and all went out. STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING I'd been on duty from two till four.I went and stared at the dug-out door.Down in the frowst I heard them snore."Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore.Dawn was misty; the skies were still;Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;_They_ seemed happy; but _I_ felt ill.Deep in water I splashed my wayUp the trench to our bogged front line.Rain had fallen the whole damned night.O Jesus, send me a wound to-day,And I'll believe in Your bread and wine,And get my bloody old sins washed white! "IN THE PINK" So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink."Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie."With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drinkOf rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend.Winter was passing; soon the year would mend. He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the darkHe groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,When he'd go out as cheerful as a larkIn his best suit to wander arm-in-armWith brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her earThe simple, silly things she liked to hear. And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudgeUp to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,And everything but wretchedness forgotten.To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.And still the war goes on; _he_ don't know why.
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