Chapter 2

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glowering sun Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!

COUNTER-ATTACK

We'd gained our first objective hours before While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud, Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering slime. And then the rain began,--the jolly old rain!

A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.

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 Dick 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 hell!" 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 hoarse 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 "Dickie." "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 hell! O Dickie, 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 God 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 scrap." 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.

HOW TO DIE

Dark clouds are smouldering into red While down the craters morning burns. The dying soldier shifts his head To watch the glory that returns: He lifts his fingers toward the skies Where holy brightness breaks in flame; Radiance reflected in his eyes, And on his lips a whispered name.

You'd think, to hear some people talk, That lads go West with sobs and curses, And sullen faces white as chalk, Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. But they've been taught the way to do it Like Christian soldiers; not with haste And shuddering groans; but passing through it With due regard for decent taste.

EDITORIAL IMPRESSION

He seemed so certain "all was going well," As he discussed the glorious time he'd had While visiting the trenches. "One can tell You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad Who'd been severely wounded in the back In some wiped-out impossible Attack. "Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing A little book called _Europe on the Rack_, Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting. I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,' And the amazing spirit of the troops. By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine! I watched one daring beggar looping loops, Soaring and diving like some bird of prey. And through it all I felt that splendour shine Which makes us win." The soldier sipped his wine. "Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!"

FIGHT TO A FINISH

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying, And hear the music of returning feet. "Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought, This moment is the finest." (So they thought.)

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob, Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel. At last the boys had found a cushy job.

* * * * *

I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal; And with my trusty bombers turned and went To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.

ATROCITIES

You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood, How once you butchered prisoners. That was good! I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.

How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy: You know I love to hear how Germans die, Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry; Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.

* * * * *

And you? I know your record. You went sick When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick And lie, you wangled home. And here you are, Still talking big and boozing in a bar.

THE FATHERS

Snug at the club two fathers sat, Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. One of them said: "My eldest lad Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. But Arthur's getting all the fun At Arras with his nine-inch gun."

"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck! My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck In England training all this year. Still, if there's truth in what we hear, The Huns intend to ask for more Before they bolt across the Rhine." I watched them toddle through the door-- These impotent old friends of mine.

"BLIGHTERS"

The house is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; "We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!"

I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls, Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"-- And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.

GLORY OF WOMEN

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, Or wounded in a mentionable place. You worship decorations; you believe That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. You make us shells. You listen with delight, By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. You crown our distant ardours while we fight, And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.

You can't believe that British troops "retire" When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood. _O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud._

THEIR FRAILTY

He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then War's fine and bold and bright. She can forget the doomed and prisoned men Who agonize and fight.

He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain And peril of his plight. Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, She prays for peace each night.

Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere They die; War bleeds us white. Mothers and wives and sweethearts,--they don't care So long as He's all right.

DOES IT MATTER?

Does it matter?--losing your legs?... For people will always be kind, And you need not show that you mind When the others come in after football To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?--losing your sight?... There's such splendid work for the blind; And people will always be kind, As you sit on the terrace remembering And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... You can drink and forget and be glad, And people won't say that you're mad; For they'll know that you've fought for your country, And no one will worry a bit.

SURVIVORS

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they're "longing to go out again,"-- These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk, They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-- Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride.... Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

CRAIGLOCKHART, _Oct. 1917._

JOY-BELLS

Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells To the green-vista'd gladness of the past That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.

What means this metal in windy belfries hung When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.

Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." So let our bells and bishops do the same, Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus.

ARMS AND THE MAN

Young Croesus went to pay his call On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: And, though his wound was healed and mended, He hoped he'd get his leave extended.

The waiting-room was dark and bare. He eyed a neat-framed notice there Above the fireplace hung to show Disabled heroes where to go For arms and legs; with scale of price, And words of dignified advice How officers could get them free.

Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,-- Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, They'd be restored him free of cost.

Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say, "Will Captain Croesus come this way?"

WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS ...

When I'm among a blaze of lights, With tawdry music and cigars And women dawdling through delights, And officers at cocktail bars,-- Sometimes I think of garden nights And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room With yellow candles burning straight, And glowing pictures in the gloom, And kindly books that hold me late. Of things like these I love to think When I can never be alone: Then some one says, "Another drink?"-- And turns my living heart to stone.

THE KISS

To these I turn, in these I trust; Brother Lead and Sister Steel. To his blind power I make appeal; I guard her beauty clean from rust.

He spins and burns and loves the air, And splits a skull to win my praise; But up the nobly marching days She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this; That in good fury he may feel The body where he sets his heel Quail from your downward darting kiss.

THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER

He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said: "You'd think so much bereavement would have made Unusual big demands upon my trade. The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk-- Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke."

He eyed the Cemetery across the road-- "There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while, That should be here by rights; they little know'd How they'd get buried in such wretched style."

I told him, with a sympathetic grin, That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; And he was horrified. "What shameful sin! O sir, that Christian men should come to that!"

THE ONE-LEGGED MAN

Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field, With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.

And he'd come home again to find it more Desirable than ever it was before. How right it seemed that he should reach the span Of comfortable years allowed to man!

Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife, Safe with his wound, a citizen of life. He hobbled blithely through the garden gate, And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!"

RETURN OF THE HEROES

_A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._

"Oh! there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity.... Saluting.... (_Wave your flag ... now, Freda!_)... Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,--at Munich.

"Here's the next carriage!... Jack was once in Leggit's Corps; That's him!... I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer. They _must_ feel sad to know they can't win any more Great victories!... Aren't they glorious men?... so full of humour!"

III

TWELVE MONTHS AFTER

Hullo! here's my platoon, the lot I had last year. "The War'll be over soon." "What 'opes?" "No bloody fear!" Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct." They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect. Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night: And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79), Who always must be firing at the Boche front line.

* * * * *

"Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!" That's what they used to sing along the roads last spring; That's what they used to say before the push began; That's where they are to-day, knocked over to a man.

TO ANY DEAD OFFICER

Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say, Because I'd like to know that you're all right. Tell me, have you found everlasting day, Or been sucked in by everlasting night? For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; I hear you make some cheery old remark-- I can rebuild you in my brain, Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud Of nothing more than having good years to spend; Longed to get home and join the careless crowd Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend. That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire: No earthly chance can send you crawling back; You've finished with machine-gun fire-- Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you'd get done in, Because you were so desperate keen to live: You were all out to try and save your skin, Well knowing how much the world had got to give. You joked at shells and talked the usual "shop," Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: With "Jesus Christ! when _will_ it stop? Three years.... It's hell unless we break their line."

So when they told me you'd been left for dead I wouldn't believe them, feeling it _must_ be true. Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said "Wounded and missing"--(That's the thing to do When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow, With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, Moaning for water till they know It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!)

* * * * *

Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God, And tell Him that our Politicians swear They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod Under the Heel of England.... Are you there?...

Yes ... and the War won't end for at least two years; But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with tears, Staring into the dark. Cheero! I wish they'd killed you in a decent show.

SICK LEAVE

When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. "Why are you here with all your watches ended? From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line." In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; And while the dawn begins with slashing rain I think of the Battalion in the mud. "When are you going out to them again? Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"

BANISHMENT

I am banished from the patient men who fight. They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- Not one by one: and mutinous I cried To those who sent them out into the night.

The darkness tells how vainly I have striven To free them from the pit where they must dwell In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.

AUTUMN

October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown Along the westering furnace flaring red. O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, The burden of your wrongs is on my head.

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; What silly beggars they are to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, And you're as right as rain.... Why won't it rain?... I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night, With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are, Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.

* * * * *

You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns.

TOGETHER

Splashing along the boggy woods all day, And over brambled hedge and holding clay, I shall not think of him: But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, I know that he'll be with me on my way Home through the darkness to the evening fire.

He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes; His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; Hearing the saddle creak, He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. I shall forget him in the morning light; And while we gallop on he will not speak: But at the stable-door he'll say good-night.

THE HAWTHORN TREE

Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there's been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that's out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree.

* * * * *