Ardours and Endurances Part 2

O ... but it's cold--I soak in the rain-- Shrapnel found me--I shan't come home again-- No, not home again!

The mourning voices trail Away into rain, into darkness ... the pale Soughing of the night drifts on in between.

_The Voices were as if the dead had never been._

O melancholy heavens, O melancholy fields, The glad, full darkness grows complete and s.h.i.+elds Me from your appeal.

With a terrible delight I hear far guns low like oxen at the night.

Flames disrupt the sky.

The work is begun.

"Action!" My guns crash, flame, rock and stun Again and again. Soon the soughing night Is loud with their clamour and leaps with their light.

The imperative chorus rises sonorous and fell: My heart glows lighted as by fires of h.e.l.l.

Sharply I pa.s.s the terse orders down.

The guns blare and rock. The hissing rain is blown Athwart the hurtled sh.e.l.l that shrilling, shrilling goes Away into the dark, to burst a cloud of rose Over German trenches.

A pause: I stand and see Lifting into the night like founts incessantly The pistol-lights' pale spores upon the glimmering air....

Under them furrowed trenches empty, pallid, bare....

And rain snowing trenchward ghostly and white.

O dead in the hedges, sleep ye well to-night!

III.--COMRADES: AN EPISODE

Before, before he was aware The 'Verey' light had risen ... on the air It hung glistering....

And he could not stay his hand From moving to the barbed wire's broken strand.

A rifle cracked.

He fell.

Night waned. He was alone. A heavy sh.e.l.l Whispered itself pa.s.sing high, high overhead.

His wound was wet to his hand: for still it bled On to the glimmering ground.

Then with a slow, vain smile his wound he bound, Knowing, of course, he'd not see home again-- Home whose thought he put away.

His men Whispered: "Where's Mister Gates?" "Out on the wire."

"I'll get him," said one....

Dawn blinked, and the fire Of the Germans heaved up and down the line.

"Stand to!"

Too late! "I'll get him." "O the swine!

When we might get him in yet safe and whole!"

"Corporal didn't see 'un fall out on patrol, Or he'd 'a got 'un." "Sss.h.!.+"

"No talking there."

A whisper: "'A went down at the last flare."

Meanwhile the Maxims toc-toc-tocked; their swish Of bullets told death lurked against the wish.

No hope for him!

His corporal, as one shamed, Vainly and helplessly his ill-luck blamed.

Then Gates slowly saw the morn Break in a rosy peace through the lone thorn By which he lay, and felt the dawn-wind pa.s.s Whispering through the pallid, stalky gra.s.s Of No-Man's Land....

And the tears came Scaldingly sweet, more lovely than a flame.

He closed his eyes: he thought of home And grit his teeth. He knew no help could come....

The silent sun over the earth held sway, Occasional rifles cracked and far away A heedless speck, a 'plane, slid on alone, Like a fly traversing a cliff of stone.

"I must get back," said Gates aloud, and heaved At his body. But it lay bereaved Of any power. He could not wait till night....

And he lay still. Blood swam across his sight.

Then with a groan: "No luck ever! Well, I must die alone."

Occasional rifles cracked. A cloud that shone, Gold-rimmed, blackened the sun and then was gone....

The sun still smiled. The gra.s.s sang in its play.

Someone whistled: "Over the hills and far away."

Gates watched silently the swift, swift sun Burning his life before it was begun....

Suddenly he heard Corporal Timmins' voice: "Now then, 'Urry up with that tea."

"Hi Ginger!" "Bill!" His men!

Timmins and Jones and Wilkinson (the 'bard'), And Hughes and Simpson. It was hard Not to see them: Wilkinson, stubby, grim, With his "No, sir," "Yes, sir," and the slim Simpson: "Indeed, sir?" (while it seemed he winked Because his smiling left eye always blinked) And Corporal Timmins, straight and blonde and wise, With his quiet-scanning, level, hazel eyes; And all the others ... tunics that didn't fit....

A dozen different sorts of eyes. O it Was hard to lie there! Yet he must. But no: "I've got to die. I'll get to them. I'll go."

Inch by inch he fought, breathless and mute, Dragging his carcase like a famished brute....

His head was hammering, and his eyes were dim; A b.l.o.o.d.y sweat seemed to ooze out of him And freeze along his spine.... Then he'd lie still Before another effort of his will Took him one nearer yard.

The parapet was reached.

He could not rise to it. A lookout screeched: "Mr. Gates!"

Three figures in one breath Leaped up. Two figures fell in toppling death; And Gates was lifted in. "Who's. .h.i.t?" said he.

"Timmins and Jones." "Why did they that for me?-- I'm gone already!" Gently they laid him p.r.o.ne And silently watched.

He twitched. They heard him moan "Why for me?" His eyes roamed round, and none replied.

"I see it was alone I should have died."

They shook their heads. Then, "Is the doctor here?"

"He's coming, sir; he's hurryin', no fear."

"No good....

Lift me." They lifted him.

He smiled and held his arms out to the dim, And in a moment pa.s.sed beyond their ken, Hearing him whisper, "O my men, my men!"

IN HOSPITAL, LONDON, _Autumn, 1915_.

IV.--BEHIND THE LINES: NIGHT, FRANCE

At the cross-roads I halt And stand stock-still....

The linked and flickering constellations climb Slowly the spread black heaven's immensity.

The wind wanders like a thought at fault.

Within the close-shuttered cottage nigh I hear--while its fearful, ag'd master sleeps like the dead-- A slow clock chime With solemn thrill The most sombre hour of time, And see stand in the cottage's garden chill The two white crosses, one at each grave's head....

O France, France, France! I loved you, love you still; But, Oh! why took you not my life instead?