Voices of Silence Page 20
Below, the earth lay creased
With myriad meadows in the morning haze.
Far off, where lay the sea,
A silvered mirror beckoned to my bent,
And, moving orderly,
The high cloud-armies marched magnificent.
Some menace in the sky,
Some quick alarm did wake me as I sped:
At once, unwarningly
Streamed out repeated death, from one that fled
Headlong before my turn –
But, unavoiding of the answering blast,
Checked sudden, fell astern –
And unmolested fared I to the last.
Gordon Alchin
Over the Lines
We were flying in formation and we kept our ruddy station,
Though the wind was trying hard to sweep the sky.
And we watched the puffs of powder, heard the Archies booming louder
And we didn’t need to stop to reason why.
With the German lines below us, and a gale that seemed to throw us
Into nowhere, as it would a schoolboy’s kite,
We went skimming through the ether always keeping close together
And we felt the joy of battle grip us tight.
Then from out of the horizon which we kept our eager eyes on
Swept the Fokkers in their deadly fan-wise dash.
Soon the Vickers guns were cracking and a couple started backing,
Whilst a third was sent down in a flaming flash.
How we blessed our Bristol Fighters, as we closed in with the blighters
And we zoomed and banked and raced them through the air.
We abandoned our formation, but we won the situation,
Won it easily, with four machines to spare.
Then Archie burst around us, and the beggar nearly found us,
But we dived towards our lines without delay,
And we finished gay and merry on a binge of gin and sherry,
For we knew we’d lived to see another day.
Semi-Detached
At a lofty elevation
Floating lazy in the sun,
What an ideal occupation
Keeping watch on brother Hun!
Though a ‘sausage’ is my villa
Far from angry whizz-bangs’ scream,
I can watch the caterpillar,
And all things are what they seem.
In a contemplative manner
When the ‘big push’ is begun,
’Tis from here I’d love to see it,
From my place up in the sun.
Eyes in the Air
Our guns are a league behind us, our target a mile below,
And there’s never a cloud to blind us from the haunts of our lurking foe –
Sunk pit whence his shrapnel tore us, support-trench crest-concealed,
As clear as the charts before us, his ramparts lie revealed.
His panicked watchers spy us, a droning threat in the void;
Their whistling shells outfly us – puff upon puff, deployed
Across the green beneath us, across the flanking gray,
In fume and fire to sheath us and baulk us of our prey.
Before, beyond, above her,
Their iron web is spun:
Flicked but unsnared we hover,
Edged planes against the sun:
Eyes in the air above his lair,
The hawks that guide the gun!
No word from earth may reach us, save, white against the ground,
The strips outspread to teach us whose ears are deaf to sound:
But down the winds that sear us, athwart our engine’s shriek
We send – and know they hear us, the ranging guns we speak.
Our visored eyeballs show us their answering pennant, broke
Eight thousand feet below us, a whorl of flame-stabbed smoke –
The burst that hangs to guide us, while numbed gloved fingers tap
From wireless key beside us the circles of the map.
Line – target – short or over –
Come, plain as clock hands run,
Words from the birds that hover,
Unblinded, tail to sun;
Words out of air to range them fair,
From hawks that guide the gun!
Your dying shells have failed you, your landward guns are dumb:
Since earth hath naught availed you, these skies be open! Come,
Where, wild to meet and mate you, flame in their beaks for breath,
Black doves! the white hawks wait you on the wind-tossed boughs of death.
These boughs be cold without you, our hearts are hot for this,
Our wings shall beat about you, our scorching breath shall kiss;
Till, fraught with that we gave you, fulfilled of our desire,
You bank – too late to save you from biting beaks of fire –
Turn sideways from your lover,
Shudder and swerve and run,
Tilt; stagger; and plunge over
Ablaze against the sun:
Doves dead in air, who clomb to dare
The hawks that guide the gun!
Gilbert Frankau
Ten German Aeroplanes
Ten German aeroplanes coming from the Rhine,
One was shot down, and then there were nine.
Nine German aeroplanes sang the ‘Hymn of Hate’,
One burst his lungs up, and then there were eight.
Eight German aeroplanes travelling towards Heaven,
One lost his way there, and then there were seven.
Seven German aeroplanes in an awful fix,
One got fizzled up, and then there were six.
Six German aeroplanes trying how to dive,
One sank below the Thames, and then there were five.
Five German aeroplanes dodging round a store,
A British airman caught one, and then there were four.
Four German aeroplanes going out to sea,
One got ‘drownded’, and then there were three.
Three German aeroplanes, wobbling as they flew,
One over-wobbled, and then there were two.
Two German aeroplanes turned their tails to run
Home to the Fatherland, and then there was one.
One German aeroplane travelling all alone,
He gave himself up, and then there were none.
Two Pictures
Dawn . . .
And the dewy plain
Awakes to life and sound –
Where on the flying-ground
The ghostly hangars blaze with lights again.
The giant birds of prey
Creep forth to a new day,
And one by one
As morning gilds the dome
Leave the grey aerodrome –
– The day’s begun.
Dusk . . .
And the vanish’d sun
Still streaks the evening skies:
Below, the prone Earth lies
Darken’d, wherever warring Night has won.
The ’planes, returning, show
Deep black in the afterglow,
And one by one
Drop down from the higher airs,
– Down, down the invisible stairs –
The day is done.
Gordon Alchin
Searchlights
You who have seen across the star-decked skies
The long white arms of searchlights slowly sweep,
Have you imagined what it is to creep
High in the darkness, cold and terror-wise,
For ever looked for by those cruel eyes
Which search with far-flung beams the shadowy deep,
And near the wings unending vigil keep
To haunt the lonely airman as he flies?
Have you imaged what it is to know
That if one finds you all their fierce desire
To see you fall will dog you as you go,
High in a sea of light and bursting fire,
Like some small bird, lit up and blinding white
Which slowly moves across the shell-torn night?
Paul Bewsher
Every Little While
Every little while I crash a Camel,
Every little while I hit a tree;
I’m always stalling – I’m always falling,
Because I want to fly a posh S.E.
Every little while my engine’s conking,
Every little while I catch on fire.
All the time I’ve got my switch up
I’ve always got the wind up.
Every, every, every little while.
[Captain Riddell, R.F.C.]
Captain Riddell, R.F.C.
Trying to land a bumble-bee
Broke an under carriage Vee.
First he blamed the E.L.C.,
Foiled in that the landing Tee . . .
. . . what a dreadful liar he.
O.C. Squadron said ‘Let’s see
That’s the tenth machine that he
Has destroyed most foolishly;
I shall recommend he be
Transferred to the A.S.C.’.
The moral of this tale is plain
Speak the truth and shame the devil
If you’re summoned to explain
Always do so on the level.
The Last Lay of the Sopwith Camel Pilot
Beside a Belgian ’staminet when the smoke had cleared away,
Beneath a busted Camel, its former pilot lay,
His throat was cut by the bracing wires, the tank had hit his head,
And coughing a shower of dental work, these parting words he said:
‘Oh, I’m going to a better land,
They binge there ev’ry night,
The cocktails grow on bushes,
So ev’ryone stays tight.
They’ve torn up all the calendars,
They’ve busted all the clocks,
And little drops of whisky
Come trickling through the rocks.’
The pilot breathed these last few gasps before he passed away,
‘I’ll tell you how it happened – my flippers didn’t stay,
The motor wouldn’t hit at all, the struts were far too few,
A shot went through the gas tank, and let the gas leak through.
‘Oh, I’m going to a better land, where the motors always run,
Where the eggnog grows on the eggplant, and pilots grow a bun.
They’ve got no Sops, they’ve got no Spads, they’ve got no Flaming Fours,
And little frosted juleps are served at all the stores.
‘Oh, I’m going to a better land,
They binge there ev’ry night,
The cocktails grow on bushes,
So ev’ryone stays tight.
They’ve torn up all the calendars
They’ve busted all the clocks,
And little drops of whisky
Come trickling through the rocks.’
The Dying Aviator
A handsome young airman lay dying,
lay dying,
And as on the aer’drome he lay,
he lay,
To the mechanics who round him came sighing,
came sighing,
These last dying words he did say,
he did say:
‘Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,’
‘of his kidneys’
‘The connecting rod out of my brain,’
‘of his brain,’
‘The cam box from under my backbone,’
‘his backbone,’
‘And assemble the engine again.’
‘again’.
Captain Albert Ball, V.C., D.S.O.
You may prate of dashing Majors, or of gallant, grim old stagers,
When you’re sitting in the smoke-room of the Club;
You may laud the high endeavour of the warriors swift and clever,
From the Colonel to the smallest junior sub.
They are Britain’s vowed defenders; they have added to her splendours,
They are heroes in excelsis, one and all;
But the Trojan of our nation, who has soared to Fame’s high station,
Is the Nottinghamshire nugget – Albert Ball!
He has hewn a path to Glory; he shall shine in endless story;
He has triumphed in the conquest of the air;
He has wrought a thousand wonders ’mid the tumults and the thunders
Of a War with which no others can compare.
He was true to our traditions; he fulfilled the fiercest missions
With a bravery that nothing can efface;
Bringing Bosches down in plenty, he, a youth of only twenty,
Must be reckoned with the giants of the race!
He is gone – alas, for ever; yet his fame shall falter never,
And his deeds of dazzling daring shall endure,
To inspire each generation with a glowing admiration
For the ways of peerless pilots, swift and sure.
Though his innings here is finished, still with fervour undiminished
We will praise him, first and foremost in the van;
And wherever men may muster, they shall magnify his lustre,
For he proved himself a hero and – a man!
TEN
Verdun, the Battle of the Somme Begins
The opening of the ‘Big Push’
Plans for a combined French and English assault in France in the summer of 1916 were thrown into disarray when the Germans attacked the French at Verdun in February that year. Their plan was not the capture of Verdun – it was to bleed the French white. The siege, which lasted until July, resulted in more than half a million dead and was the bloodiest battle in history. The French commander, Marshal Pétain, famously declared: ‘Ils ne passèrent pas’, but the scale of the tragedy was to lead to the French army mutinies of 1917.
Preparations for the Somme offensive went ahead, but it now became a largely British campaign, one in which the New Armies would play their first really significant role. Preparations were thorough and extensive, and optimism high. The northernmost point of the British front was the village of Gommecourt, where a diversionary attack was to be launched, and from there the battle line stretched south over the rolling chalk downs above the River Somme. The preliminary bombardment, in which nearly two million shells were fired, lasted initially for six days and could be heard in England. The scale of this artillery attack led the High Command to believe that the German defences had been destroyed and that the British would walk across no man’s land with little opposition.
But some of those on the ground, particularly junior officers who would be leading the men, saw things differently. They could see that in many places the British wire remained uncut, and reports brought back by patrols told them that the German defenders had retreated deep into dugouts cut into the chalk.
Heavy rain delayed the attack for 48 hours. It was launched at 7.30 a.m. on the morning of 1 July, a beautiful summer’s day. Shortly before zero hour, three huge mines were exploded beneath the German lines, but, though they suffered huge casualties, their defence was largely unbroken. As the British, each man with 66lb of kit and many carrying entrenching tools or ladders or carrier-pigeon boxes, began to move across no man’s land behind an artillery barrage that had now slowly lifted and moved beyond the enemy front line, German machine-gunners came up from their dugouts and manned their parapets. The British were cut down in their thousands. In parts of the line the attackers did reach the German trenches, but the ferocity of the enemy defence meant that no man’s land was sometimes impassable; communications were cut off and the planned support and supplies could not get across. As the day wore on, many British who had survived were forced to withdraw to their jump-off positions. By nightfall 19,240 British soldiers were dead, most of them within the first hour. At Serre, the Accrington Pals were
all but wiped out. As well as the dead, 57,470 men were wounded or missing. It was the worst day in the history of the British army.
An unofficial truce that night meant that the British were able go out into no man’s land to bring in some of their wounded, but many more were left where they had fallen, among the dead.
Verdun
‘Verdun is ours!’ the vaunting Teuton cries,
And pours his serried ranks of frenzied hate
Wave upon wave, carnage insatiate,
To make a highway for the Lord of Lies.
‘Verdun is mine!’ unflinching France replies;
‘In vain the tyrant thunders at the gate;
For ruined homes and hearths laid desolate
The hand of Freedom beckons – and I rise.’
Joyous the lark shall soar above the green
That clothes the fallen; glad the corn shall wave;
Old eyes shall glow, recalling what hath been,
And how a new France blossomed from the grave.
Thou livest to all time, Verdun. Thy dead?
One hath them in His charge. Be comforted.
F.W. Platt
Before Action
Over the down the road goes winding,
A ribbon of white in the corn –
The young, green corn. O, the joy of binding
The sheaves some harvest morn!
But we are called to another reaping,
A harvest that will not wait.
The sheaves will be green. O, the world of weeping
Of those without the gate!
For the road we go they may not travel,
Nor share our harvesting;
But watch and weep. O, to unravel
The riddle of this thing!
Yet over the down the white road leading
Calls; and who lags behind?
Stout are our hearts; but O, the bleeding
Of hearts we may not bind!
Somme, July 1916
J.E. Stewart
Life and Death
If Death should come with his cold hasty kiss
Along the trench or in the battle strife,