This side of the Somme
The whisperings in the night were eerie. Wafting on the cordite breeze
Intermittent, distant flashes, darting through the ragged trees.
The murmurs from the other side, would come and go the whole night through.
The clouds would part and for that moment , no man’s land came into view.
Men and horses on the wire, frozen in the silver light.
Locked into a stony posture. Locked forever in this night.
A still life vista , steeped in horror .Tragic folly for our eyes.
In the trenches, all are sleeping , but for look outs, guards and spies.
Glynn Jenkins of the Glorious Glosters, seventeen years old and strong
Second watch on Regent street . An earthwork that was five miles long .
A farm boy staring through the gloom, his Enfield rifle close at hand.
Imagined movement here and there arose as he surveyed the land.
He had a sharpened sense of hearing, honed by watching herds at night.
He heard a distant painful plaint out in the mud and far from sight.
Silence for an hour or so then that faint voice desperately,
crying from the mud and mire.” Hilf mir Mutter,” was his plea.
Glynn stood up and shed his great coat , left his backpack and his gun.
Crawled off in the pressing darkness, broke into a crouching run.
He stopped to calm his panting breath and listen carefully for a sound.
He heard the whisper at his shoulder, in the dark, he turned around.
In the gloom a Wehrmacht soldier. Just a boy about fifteen.
A bloody face, his helmet gone, A hole where his left arm had been.
“ Danke, Tommy, danke, danke” Said the soldier through his pain.
Glynn bent down to pull him up and get him on his feet again.
They trudged along, the German flagged and Glynn then said “ I’ll carry you.
Get on my back lad, hold on tight. A few more yards, I’ll get us through. ”
Then suddenly the moon came out. They saw the dead around their feet.
Glynn trudged on in knee deep mud, and then some shots from Regent street.
A log is on the Major’s desk. A record of the night’s events.
It mentions two men shot and killed just outside the barbed wire fence.
A wounded German badly hurt. A British soldier on the run.
Deserter by the name of Jenkins, left behind his kit and gun.
By Michael Wainwright
This is one of many poems I have written about the first world war. My Grandfather fought in the trenches in this war and the brutality he endured has always amazed me. He lived to be 80 and was my friend.
