Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, The lean Destroyers, level with our track, Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. One sentry by the davits, in the gloom Stands mute: the boat heaves onward through the night. Shrouded is every chink of cabined light: And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders ... doom.
Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh; And slowly growing used to groping dark, I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length, Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength-- Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark Danger of life at war, they lie so still, All prostrate and defenceless, head by head... And I remember Arras, and that hill Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead.
We are going home. The troopship, in a thrill Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls. We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls.
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
_You are too young to fall asleep for ever; And when you sleep you remind me of the dead_.
'_Fall in! Now get a move on._' (Curse the rain.) We splash away along the straggling village, Out to the flat rich country, green with June.... And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon, Up in the Line.) '_Perhaps the War'll be done 'By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son._'
Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge. 'Lead on there, by platoons.' (The Line's a-glare With shellfire through the poplars; distant rattle Of rifles and machine-guns.) '_Fritz is there! 'Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_' More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. '_There's over-head artillery!_' some chap grumbles.
What's all this mob at the cross-roads? Where are the guides?... 'Lead on with number One.' And off they go. 'Three minute intervals.' (Poor blundering files, Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know If death will catch them in those two dark miles?) More rain. 'Lead on, Head-quarters.' (That's the lot.)