The Sentry

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,         And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell         Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.         Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime         Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,         Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.         What murk of air remained stank old, and sour         With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men         Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,         If not their corpses. . . .                                     There we herded from the blast         Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.         Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.         And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping         And splashing in the flood, deluging muck--         The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles         Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.         We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined         "O sir, my eyes--I'm blind--I'm blind, I'm blind!"         Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids         And said if he could see the least blurred light         He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.         "I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids         Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there         In posting next for duty, and sending a scout         To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about         To other posts under the shrieking air.         Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,         And one who would have drowned himself for good,--         I try not to remember these things now.         Let dread hark back for one word only: how         Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,         And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,         Renewed most horribly whenever crumps         Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath--         Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout         "I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.