Source: File: Members
of 16th (Service) Battalion (3rd Birmingham) Royal Warwickshire Regiment in a
flooded trench on Somme battlefield, during the winter of 1915. jpeg, [online] see
original image at: <http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/birmingham-wwi-soldiers-lost-voices-5797403>
Accessed: 7 December 2015].
December and the turn of weather,
That takes a step deeper into winter -
When back home is a time to hurry.
Safely inside to draw curtains, to light
A fire by which to rest end of day.
A time when
civilian men took home
For granted, all
which changed under
Country's oath -
swapped hearth for
Open elements of another
country -
Marching in cold on a Flanders road.
Marching in cold on a Flanders road.
Campaigns of
winter takes a grip
Again, as seekers of
scant comforts
Under khaki, each soldier with soldier
Facing dual
combatants; weather
And an enemy
under an incessant rain.
Each falling,
dreary drip of rain -
Each drip the
same that builds
Every trench into
a swelling drain.
The 3rd day of
December sends
A bitter wind
howling over fields.
That bitter wind across
Flemish
Fields - damp
gusts that sweeps
Cold wetness into
the faces
Of marching men -
not marching
But heavy
plodding through mud.
Lifting with
effort, each heavy
Foot onwards to
those firing lines.
An accumulation
of mud makes
Every weary
progress to sentry
Duty, on the
bitter fire-steps.
Still comes the
slow, dreary drips
Of rain, as each
sentry stands
To face the slime
ridden parapet -
Incessant Flanders
falling rains,
As white fog creeps
in darkness.
Fiendish shapes
form up as lost
Phantoms live in
No Mans Land;
As hands wring
and grip rifles
Cold seeps into
toes and fingers
As someone jokes
for warmth.
Laughter forms in man's exhaled
Bursts of vapours,
everywhere
Moisture settles
down on dugout
Furniture -
beyond the parapets
The mist veil
conceals an enemy.
Like each Tommy, Jerry
too does
Nothing but sees
the same view -
Wise not to
attack over dank
Quagmire - to
imagine bayonet
Attacks sink into
muddy clogs.
For days, weeks,
some months
A stick-in-the-mud
war, would
Be spent fighting
nature floods -
Of trenches
reinforcing walls,
Parapets and boarding
floors.
Fresh troops of
working parties
Slumped in their
new Brodie
Bowls, waterproofs
and waders -
In naked protectiveness
to see
And dodge
raindrops and bullets.
Flanders rain,
enemy bullets
Of snipers,
become entwined -
Hard to tell one
from other,
Until the metal
hits, each to adds
To casualties in
clearing stations.
Dankness, mist,
rain and jokes
Mix in the impossible,
stupidest
Situations - endless incessant
Drips, that camouflages
bullets,
Until they hit
the unwary soldier.
No intentions to
reassure those
Folk at home, how
neighbors
On other side of
barbed wire
Of German Jerry's
even more
Miserable
existence in mud.
A tale of
sobriety tells falling
Morale of the Germans
spirit -
Proof came by fact of crawling
Germans to allied
lines - to tell
How their lives
lay in misery.
While equal in
trench wetness,
It seems to be
the physical
Frame of the
German soldier,
That suffers
relentless malaise -
Opposed to
stories of comfort.
Tales made of
involved enemy
Dugouts with
panelled walls,
Quaint pianos and
electric fittings,
Which have been
seen in taken
Positions; yet for officers only.
Witnesses stated that a trench
Is still a trench,
wherever it lay.
More so with knee
deep water,
Or higher - while
enemy make
Efforts to drain
Bellewarde lake.
The overflow of
waters might
Have been halted
for a while,
But the allied
artillery maintain
The miser - as
new types of gun
Give equality to
high explosives.
Such is the
dreary December
Weather of a
winter, to halt all
Progress of any
likely charge,
That threatens to
dampen Jerry
To stand less
happy than Tommy.
by Jamie Mann.
Gibbs, P., 1915 Dreary
Weather in the Flanders Trenches -Shelling the Enemy - Downcast Deserters. The
Daily Telegraph, [online]
6
December. P.6. Col.3. Available
at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12025661/Daily-Telegraph-December-7-1915.html
[Accessed: 6 December 2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 6 December 2015).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Flanders
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