From a field hospital a
wounded French soldier,
Makes correspondence to his
London friend.
Describing how he arrived
there, and how
A hole has appeared now his
left shoulder.
Praising the patient nurses
who never tire,
But just smile back and make
a comic reply.
He starts his account, in
mellow mourning;
Replacing his journalistic
pen for a rifle -
Which can be as sharp as a
bayonet.
His civilian occupation has
led him to
Experience battle as both
soldier and journalist.
On that day the army, of
which he is a part,
Marched upon a cultivated plain
- on either flank
The field being dotted with
groups of harvesters.
Girls and old men, creating
scenery of peace,
Amid rolling land of hills
and wooded crests,
Marching, marching kilometre
upon Kilometre,
Forms a snaking line of
fighting men.
Atop one hill this French
man looks back
To see the serpent, of which
he is apart.
Their colour's are not just
for show,
But a force going to war
because they wish to.
Being ‘A superhuman power of
determination.’
Each solder having
everything he needs,
To keep his spirit high.
Then a dust cloud
To their left flank, rises
up and they hear
Sounds of moving troops and
horses hooves.
A Parallel marching troop,
Which they glimpse through
the field crops.
Muttered rumours pass
between them.
They are surely the British.
But French officers
Do not disclose if they are
British, French
Or Belgian - only that they
are their allies.
The landscape about, starts
to darken,
With dispatch riders
hurrying by them -
Now come orders to quicken
their march.
Part of the Serpent army
suddenly divides off
To marches across a pasture
land.
The rattling of gunfire has
been growing
For a time - then the
clearer thud -
Thud of artillery. More
dispatch riders
Coming from the battle scene,
Meet their officers in a
kicking up of dust.
Now our man hurries across a
grass field,
Reaching a crest of a hill,
to drop flat,
Viewing the hill opposite,
where a keen fight
Is on between enemy and an
allied division.
Shapes of German
artillery-men move like toys
Quickly operating their artillery
gun –
The gun sends out a flash,
the sound
Re echoes in the hills. Our
Frenchman
Feels he is a spectator and
others too,
As they too look to see
where that shell has fallen.
It is like a grand outdoor
theatre,
With them lying prone as a
curious audience.
The surreal situation causes
humour, which
To any other than the
soldier sounds ill at ease –
The barks of orders are made
to return fire.
So volley after volley is
made at the enemy’s stand
Our man notes Germans are
good at parades,
But they are bad shooters -
bullets and shells fly
Past over their heads. After a time
The French heavy guns join
the maelstrom,
As reinforcements come up
behind.
Our Frenchman is in the
front line,
Ordered to race for the
plain ahead.
He lifts to stoop into the
raining bullets.
When hearing the whizzing
sound,
Means the bullet has already
passed.
Therefore the metal hits in
silence.
Within the depth of the
hailing,
Comes over him a feeling
like a fever.
Dropping then lifting to
rush forward again -
Nerves on edge as time is
stretched.
The earth shakes, quaking
the body -
As the air blazes in
rattling rifle fire.
To his right a man is shot
through the chest
Dropping without a sound -
then to the front
Of him a man throws up his
arms,
Falls, gets up again, but
falls again,
Calling out his last words.
The Frenchman finds the rush
To take the ground
surrounded by dykes
Is gained. There comes the
blast of a shell,
And five men lay dead. A man
without legs
Cries out to die, a moving
officer stops
To look at him, then shoots
him in the heart.
The officer, about to make a
command,
Is promptly shot through the
mouth.
Spinning twice he falls
across a dyke.
At a distance Red Cross
soldiers stoop,
Through the wounded, lifting
them to an ambulance.
A shell explodes – only two
of them are left.
Casualties lay about in the
green grass -
Then a French voice calls
out the retreat.
Our French man makes his way
back,
Glancing to a German
battery, which turns
To aim at them, but is hit
simultaneously
By two shells and is then swept
away.
There is a pause and they
turn back,
To inflict more fire upon
the enemy.
Finding some calmness in the
carnage,
He lifts his rifle to any
moving, living target.
With each bullet fired he
looks for a second
To see the resulting effect
of a falling man.
The numbers of enemy are
still too great
So the retreat is made,
running from the plain,
Back to a hill where he
reaches a crest,
To feel a slight shock in
the left shoulder.
Moving on there comes a
burning pain,
And the arm becomes heavy –
he is wounded.
Some time later, finds himself,
in a field hospital
Happy to be attended to by a
keen nurse,
Who, to stop him writing in
order to eat,
Threatens him with
punishment.
Our Frenchman wonders what
that might be.
by
Jamie Mann
Anon.,
1914. Soldier's Story of a Terrible Fight - Grim Incidents - Heroic Nurses. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 27 Aug. p.8. Col.5. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11034852/Daily-Telegraph-August-27-1914.html
[Accessed: 27th August
2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100
years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 27
August 2014).
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