A Royal Army
Medical Corp
Lieutenant,
speaks out about
The British Army
conditions.
Our Lieutenant says
before him
Are the German
trenches,
100 yards away – whose
presence
Is marked by an
occasional
Wave of a spade,
a shaking fist -
And sometimes a bobbing
head.
The day before,
31 October,
A Tommy set up a
target.
Taking a charred
stick, he drew
A Bull’s eye on
paper.
Tying it to a
cardboard box,
He placed it before
the trench
With a flag - he
then recorded
Fritz’s frequent
near misses.
Our Lieutenant
wished
The enemy had such
humour,
To pass weary
hours of watch.
Instead they just
faced
The ‘phlegmatic
Teuton.’
The German,
He sees as a wary
soldier,
Unable to find
any leisure,
In artfully
placed barbed wire.
Yet Tommy,
He observes turns
to humour
At any given time
-
Upon an occasion,
A German shell,
Set fire to some
wood,
To give the men a
chance,
To gather about
to cook their food.
Another dark
humoured event,
He heard the
previous day,
Took place under
shrapnel fire.
One man, beside
two,
Who were killed,
While a third was
badly hit –
Desperately tried
to light
His pipe, with
difficulty –
Turning to his
mate he said;
‘Shure tis
Belgian tobacco
And these French
matches,
Will be the death
of me.’
Our Lieutenant
helps out,
To censor letters
- within
One note, a
soldier stated,
‘We have shells
for breakfast –
Not egg shells. I
shall be in Berlin
In a fortnight
and I’ll send you
Some sausages.’
On a
philosophical note,
A comment came to
his ears,
When the company
took a march.
One man said to
another, ‘I never
Believe anything
I hear,
And only half of
what I say.’
He saw a man
sitting in perfect
Place of safety,
beginning
A letter to say,
‘midst shot and shell
I write to thee
dear mother.’
The Lieutenant
feels the men
Always look to
the bright side,
And suffer such ailments
with fortitude,
He concludes that:
‘Takes a lot to
make them give in.’
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1914. Battle
Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago -
Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 12 November
2014).
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