The Redeemer

DARKNESS: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;

It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep:
There, with much work to do before the light,
We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might
Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,
And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;
We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one.
Darkness: the distant wink of a huge gun.

I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;
A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,
And lit the face of what had been a form
Floundering in mirk. He stook before me there:
I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare,

And leaning forward from his burdening task,
Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine
Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask

Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine.

No thorny crown, only a woollen cap
He wore an English soldier, white and strong,
Who loved his time like any simple chap,
Good days of work and sport and homely song;
Now he has learned that nights are very long,
And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure
Horror and pain, not uncontent to die

That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.

He faced me, reeling in his weariness,

Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.

I
say that he was Christ, who wrought to bless
All groping things with freedom bright as air,
And with His mercy washed and made them fair.

Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, While we began to struggle along the ditch;

And someone flung his burden in the muck, Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!"

A Subaltern

He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze
And fresh face slowly brightening to the grin
That sets my memory back to summer days
With twenty runs to make, and last man in.
He told me he'd been having a bloody time
In trenches, crouching for the "crumps" to burst,
While squeaking rats scampered across the slime
And the grey palsied weather did its worst.
But as he stamped and shivered in the rain,
My stale philosophies had served him well;
Dreaming about his girl had sent his brain
Blanker than ever-she'd no place in Hell.
"Good God!" he laughed, and calmly filled his pipe,
Wondering "why he always talked such tripe."

"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 drink
Of 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 dark
He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,
When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark

In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm

With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear
The simple, silly things she liked to hear.

And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge
Up 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.