The Sentry

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shellHammered on top, but never quite burst through.Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slimeKept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.What murk of air remained stank old, and sourWith fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of menWho'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,If not their corpses. . . .There we herded from the blastOf whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumpingAnd splashing in the flood, deluging muck--The sentry's body; then his rifle, handlesOf old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined"O sir, my eyes--I'm blind--I'm blind, I'm blind!"Coaxing, I held a flame against his lidsAnd said if he could see the least blurred lightHe was not blind; in time he'd get all right."I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squidsWatch my dreams still; but I forgot him thereIn posting next for duty, and sending a scoutTo beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering aboutTo other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,And one who would have drowned himself for good,--I try not to remember these things now.Let dread hark back for one word only: howHalf-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,Renewed most horribly whenever crumpsPummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath--Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.