Poem ~ Trench Rats - Thursday, 13 January 1916

Source: File:  Ratting: The New Sport in the Trenches. [online] see an original image at: <http://www.rentokil.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Trench-rats-3.jpg> Accessed: 13 January 2016].

Source: File: Ratting: A heap of 600 Rats. [online] see an original image at: <http://www.rentokil.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Trench-rats-3.jpg> Accessed: 13 January 2016].

Another dire factor of trench existence

Came with the presence of rats -

Any shelter or ditch, dug into earth,

Cut into rocks or amid woods,

All suffered sights of such creatures.

Such were the menace of the rats

Being were known to retaliate,

At those chasing them along a trench -

To snap and bite their feet;

Such cases were not isolated events.

Brown or black types of rats became

Ever bolder, like unwanted pets -

Ready to snatch a piece of bread from

Any unwary soldier's hands;

Or crawl over men who fell asleep.

Rats tested their luck on the living,

To leave possible plague

Of Wiel's disease - likely keeping

Away by day, the chance

Rats emerged at night for hunting.

Rain, filth and mud had provided

Ideal places for rats to breed,

Alongside the human inhabitants -

At times being so bad

To drive living souls out of holes.

The sight of such things had once

Sent a French officer to flee

From a comfortable dugout to live

In a damp shelter, where

Corrugated iron kept rats at bay.

A new force dispatched to front

Were presence of terriers,

To back a new type of sport - while

Prohibition of shots did not

Stop the game of bayonet practice.

Likely encouraged by dead rats

Numbers making for

Rewards, at halfpenny each - 8000

Kills by one corps, made

Earnings to a total of 16 pounds.

A tale could be told, how one lucky

Officer had been given

A sprung bed  - as he retired he heard

A scuffle, to shine a light on

Two rats, fighting over a severed hand.

A wounded man might find danger,

If lacking strength or ability,

To be attacked by rodent types - while

At night food cans thrown

Over trenches would rattle by rat noses.

Brown or black, the rats became as big

Cats as they gorged on dead -

The corpse rat breed having feasted

On the unburied, to unnerve

The living in knowing what they did.

Out on patrol one young soldier saw

How they came upon some

Dead, from under greatcoats scurried

Rats - saw closer a grimace face

Lost of flesh; a rat ran out of the mouth.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1916. Trench Improvements - What The French Have Done. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 12 January 1916. P.4. Col.6. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12085387/Daily-Telegraph-January-12-1916.html [Accessed: 12 January 2016].

Source: File: Encyclopedia - Trench Rats. Online. Available at: <http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/rats.htm> Accessed 13 January 2016

Source: File: Rare Historical Photos. Trench rats killed by a terrier, 1916. Online. Available at: < http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/trench-rats-killed-terrier-1916/> Accessed 13 January 2016

Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 12 January 2016). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12085387/Daily-Telegraph-January-12-1916.html

http://worldwaroneblogger.blogspot.co.uk/

#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary #worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1trenches

Poem ~ Sailors In The Trenches - Wednesday, 5 January 1916

Source: File: Royal Navy Handymen To Fight On Land And Sea.jpg. [online] An original image is Available at: <http://www.ww1propaganda.com/ww1-poster/royal-naval-division-handymen-fight-land-sea-men-wanted> [Accessed: 5 January 2016]

On the cusp of a year to another,

With the fabric of time's clock

Poised, to tick across times zones,

A vicious howling gale, marked

Out the pace on a western front.

Drenched fields and the hiss

Of wind, echoed fact that there

Lacked peace of earth for men -

One reporter Philip Gibbs, gave

Witness along an edge of France.

A countdown was beaten over

Tops of wrecked miners cottages,

Squatting on a battlefield's edge.

Reporter Gibbs walking a road,

Flinched at flashes of allied barrels.

Such light lit many pathetic sights

Of half destroyed, squat, brick

Homes, where he gave witness

To see a ghost like face beyond

A cracked pane, to peer back.

Briefly alone in crowded fields

Gave witness to jagged heaps

Of Hullich and Huisnes - under

The beaten rain's mist, stood out
Ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette.

Therein concealed rot of human

Lives - Gibbs looked out across

Sterility from a shell hole shelter,

Over to a skeletal tower bridge

Of Loos, to echo London home.

That stark iron framework -

A landmark to rear of Loos -

Shaped as London’s tower 

Bridge - had passed between

Hands as observation post.

In odd proximity to encounter

Land locked naval fighters

Jolly Jacks of stoker’s rating's

And petty officers, emerged

From ditches of dead fields.

Incongruous and at home

In the wet, the Jollies came

In hurried provisions of khaki,

From Union Jack Club stores -

Almost as if fallen from a ship.

Clean-shaved, ships ribbons

On their caps, Gibbs' quarrel

Led to friendship, after fleets

Idea of Tommy making out

A softer time than Jolly Jack.

With perspective corrected,

In total respect to witness

For themselves, endurance

Of hardships in determined

Cheer and soldierly spirits.

Jolly Jack Bluejackets taken

From 30 grand fleet ships,

Met the humoured ability

Of landsmen, to fire as well

As any grand ship at sea.

Being there to work Bluejackets

Set to tasks, as in one marine,

Over four hours, with wide grin

To tell of his bomb slinging;

As another fired rifle grenades.

A sergeant and petty officer had

Disagreed in periscope's use;

In orders to look over parapet,

This he did to see movements;

Jack held his gun in a shake.

With bayonet fixed he readied

For attack at coming Germans -

To look again - that in fact what

Was moving were the swarms 

Of rats across the sodden fields.

by Jamie Mann.

Gibbs, P., 1916. Bluejackets in the Trenches - New Year's Eve Visit - The Heroes of Loos. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 3 January 1916. P.12. Col.3. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12072929/Daily-Telegraph-January-3-1916.html [Accessed: 5 January 2016].

Source: File: Loos 1915: Tower Bridge – A Symbol of Loos. Online. Available at: <http://greatwarphotos.com/2012/09/26/loos-1915-tower-bridge-a-symbol-of-loos/> Accessed 5 January 2016

Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 5 January 2016). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12072929/Daily-Telegraph-January-3-1916.html

http://worldwaroneblogger.blogspot.co.uk/

#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary #worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Loos