In the news, came current ways,
From the faraway fields,
Of France and Flanders -
To give those at home a picture,
How soldiers live in the trenches.
The army shifts about in rotas,
Making up three days work -
Out on the front line,
Maintenance is continuous.
With numbers of soldiers,
Always armed -
Ready in the firing trenches.
In the long hours of each day,
Communication trenches
Are to be dug by soldiers -
With shelters being built -
Ensuring their safety,
In making them bomb proof.
Early December rain poured,
And a morning task is for third
Of the Battalion to clear mud -
Mud that gathers, swirling
At the bottom of fire trenches.
The creation of these ditches,
Had been an bizarre sight -
Taking a life of their very own.
Snaking, like a strange beast,
They move and extend, hourly.
Officer's duties mean frequently
Trekking along this inverted wall -
So Officers can walk for miles.
With head level always below,
Any signs of the countryside.
The communication trench,
That links with other places,
Develops quite a handicap -
Deep, dank gluey ceaseless mud,
Making for a heavy, tiring walk.
An Infantry Major who found
His boot laces broken, tried
And tried, straining to get
His stuck solid boots free -
In so doing almost lost his boots.
A Colonel also got so stuck,
So fatigue party was called,
Shovelling mud about his boots
Before he was at liberty.
All there could be seen was
Sky and earthen walls -
And ahead, more of same sight.
These narrow ditches were
Lived in, by untidy looking men -
Slumped shouldered, in wool caps.
Seen as land locked pirates,
The fashion of the forces,
Included the growth of beards,
With Balaclava helmets -
Their clothes spattered in clay,
Their feet encased in sandbags.
The act of digging this earth
Was no easy feat when sapping,
Or widening trenches -
With clay sticking to shovels -
After digging a lump,
It was then rolled into a ball,
And thrown out by hand.
With no such thing,
As a clean frontline soldier,
The necessity to bathe,
Is made in the support lines.
Following threes days work,
They go to the washhouse.
Situated in a nearby seminary,
Hot baths are provided,
In these support billets -
Tired men spend three days,
In recuperation and rest,
Before a return to a trench.
The washhouse attendants
Take underclothes to wash.
After thirty minutes in a tub,
Men are given clean and dry
Garments - of a previous batch.
They emerge again as soldiers,
Neat, clean and respectable.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1914. Battle Stories - Mud in the Trenches – Digging Out the
Colonel. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 19 Dec. p.12. Col.5. Available
at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11299373/Daily-Telegraph-December-19-1914.html [Accessed: 19 December 2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter]
(Personal communication, 19 December 2014).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered
