The Trench Poets of The Somme

The Trench Poets of The Somme

In memory of the million men killed at the Somme River. War never changes, humanity can.

Marching off to battle

Cadence Poem By Private John Hobbes

Marching off to battle! Marching to battle! We are we are marching off to battle!

Isn't it beautiful to go! Why I'll never know! We are we are marching off to battle!

Left our families home! Hell am I alone! We are we are marching off to battle!

Will my wife be cheating? Will my children be eating? We are we are marching off to battle!

Why did we do this, though? Bombs' fiery glow. Why are we marching off to battle?

Children in these places. Burnt hungry faces. Why are we marching off to battle?

Blood on my hands! Civilians' lives be damned! Tell me why are we marching off to battle!

Coals in their lands! Coal's in demand! That's why we are marching off to battle!

General swore on sacred oath! Law's but a silly oaf! That's why we are marching off to battle!

They’re the other side! They deserve to die! That's why we are marching off to battle!

Back home, they cheer! Anger, is it fear? That's why we're still marching off to battle!

The battle has been won! God's will be done! Why are we still marching off to battle?

Coming home in pine! General says he's fine! He can't, he can't march off to battle.

Empty seat at mother's table! But he's got a hero's label! He can't, he can't march off to battle!

When the platoon's dead. Peppered by lead. Only then will we not be marching off to battle.

*

Blood burns from the sky as the platoon crawls on their bellies like snakes in the Garden of Eden. This is no paradise. Hell boils over from its infernal domain into the Somme River. The 3rd British platoon (or what is left of it) trudges through the field.

There are seven of them now. Once there had been thirty-two.

Private Callum Reed ducks his head low and clenches his jaw, pulling himself through mud that smells of copper and all-consuming rot. The sky exhales a clammy cold, the type that only bears its sordid head at winter’s first draft. He remembers how over their old brass cooking pot, Hobbes used to sing that damn song, poem, or whatever about the marching. How he used to detest the teenage corporal's drunken recitation.

He'll never hear it again.

What's left of Hobbes is two fields back now, face down in a ditch.

Quiet like mice, another trench poet dead at the Somme.

He'd told a joke about mice and flank-steaks (he had an odd sense of humor) before the grenade he threw himself atop bounced on the mud ahead of him. He was funny that way.

Did he linger?

What did he think in that instant?

It’s beautiful how in war you don't have to think of these things. Don't worry yourself over the teenage grey matter smeared on your brow. One, two, one, two. Think of the cadence of your footsteps. Think of anything but thoughts. Do not concern yourself with the face of Hobbes at eight wrapped around his mother's waist, at twelve scribbling away at his first poem, or at sixteen, blown into several chunks the coroner will attribute to five different souls.

What could Recruiter have told him to snatch him away from college?

Now the student’s shredded, a deformed lump.

What grave would have him now?

Soon, the coffin will be filled with bricks; the family won’t mind. The coffin’s sealed; they’d rather not know.

Professor used to say greatness was futile. It was second semester, he quoted some bloke whose name Reed replaced with how to assemble a Lee-Enfield. It went something like “Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both of them.” Hobbes was no Alexander; Reed doubts he knew how to drive a mule. He was brave, though, jumping on that ‘nade, just as Jakey was a coward for refusing to go on this raid. General surely had Jakey tied to a post and…still, he’d miss them both.

Snake, snake, snake crawl on your bellies, the machine gun's bunker lies ahead. Mud-matted men hidden from Maxim’s maw. Reed slumps, his side resting against the wall beside the exposed barrel of the great metal beast. The petrol tank on his back pushes against his posture as viscous residue leaks on his soiled uniform. The nozzle brays his teeth, drooling foul-smelling pitch. It takes one pull of a trigger, one flick of the wrist, and fire consumes the bunker.

Screams.

Fire licks the skin from man, as smoke-choked throats burst, boiled blood. Reed knows that scream. For a second, as the nerves burn off and the pain flutters away, he can feel the burnt men, the weight of their hallowed eye sockets. This time last year, Reed was eating his mother’s sponge cake in the Foyer. Not that it means much. He misses the sponge cake. He misses the Foyer.

The mind wanders under that broiled gaze. If he spoke German, found the gunners in a little coffee shop outside Munich, would he have found them funny? If the gunners had seen past the mudden camouflage, would they have cleaved him apart with a thousand blazing bullets? Would they have imagined his gaze as they did it?

All that matters is the ridge.

All that matters is the ridge.

The skirmish is won. The inch taken. Corpses strewn along the hillside. Enemy ammo still cooks and sputters angry sparks from half-empty magazines. Fire skips between the bodies, German and British dead reduced to their flame-blessed basics.

Is this all there is?

There has to be something more at the summit, something worth its weight in gold that he can rest on the dead's graves like gilded flowers. Yet, it is only a hill: grass, mud, and slope. A line sketched on a map by old quills and young blood. Reed studied mythology at Cambridge, he recalls Sisyphus and his cursed trek up a never-ending slope. What would the eternally tormented Greek wish for at the top of the hill? Perhaps the same solace Reed envisioned as he slaughtered the defenders. Perhaps he would hope for nothing at all but an end to the cycle and a moment of respite.

Look at the horizon, the battlefield, fallen trees hanging fallen men from fired branches. It must have been pretty up here a long time ago before man buried his claws into the river bank and dammed its soul with sulfur. Children must have once played in the brook of bloated bodies, frolicked in the fields of broken bones. Looking at their boots, no one dares speak. Why would they? The sergeant's face drops and sags; any spark of a former smile atrophies like a shattered limb cast for far too long. Talking is for men; they are soldiers. Smiling is for men; they are soldiers. Living is for men; they are soldiers.

The Union Jack impales itself into the ground with a groan, the loose mud parting at its bulk. The flag smacks to the ground, covering the white in worms, the blue in blood, and the red in muck.

It sinks, swallows itself in the bloody mire.

A flag’s cloth.

It dirties.

The grenadiers can’t be bothered to pick it back up.

Reed looks to the sky, to the heavens, to the god that watches over the Somme. What crime could Babel have committed to be smote over this?

What was that?

A shooting star glides from foreign skies. It whistles like the train that picked him up from the village. Hot like the flamethrower fuel still on his back. German artillery reaches far. Limbless comets soar from the ridge. Ascend beyond the muck. Mission complete, the ridge is still under General’s shadow. Battlefield’s under the shine of young men made into stars in the sky five miles across. Reed’s scattered mind thinks only of coffee in Munich, tea in London, cake in the Foyer.

Quiet like mice, another trench poet dead at the Somme.

Mother serves sponge cake to Brother Tommy in the Foyer.

Onto the next trench poet, far across enemy lines.

*

In The Town of Strasburg

Love poem by amateur poet, baker, and German artillery captain, Hans Fischer.

There is a pretty girl in the town of Strasburg.

Her name Elise, her voice the softest fur.

Her smell, perfume of myrrh.

She came calling to me, and she brought her laughter.

She is my only one, and I must have her.

She braids her hair, early in the morning.

She caught my stare, she used to find me boring.

I went to war, escaped that little town.

Lost in the trench, no softness from her gown.

Once I come back home, she will be waiting.

Her face is in my mind, never fading.

There is a pretty girl, in the town of Strasburg.

Soon there'll be a wife, in the town of Strasburg.

A new baby life, in the town of Strasburg.

My greatest source of life is in the town of Strasburg.

Direct hit on the ridge.

Must have been.

No screams, no return of fire, no panic, just a fallen flag, boom, then silence. Artillery was the safer assignment, Hans always thought. Away from the frontlines, pelting 150mm shells at any fool unlucky enough to leave their trench. It’s safer, but god is it loud. Elise’s waiting at home, frying schnitzel in lard, waiting, counting the grooves on her palm. One…two…one…two. They’d met at a party, Hans had never danced before. She noticed, laughed anyway, you should hear her laugh. They eloped in secret under the witness of naught but moonlight and Cupid's cherub eyes. Alas, Elise is leagues away, the front is the only thing getting closer.

BOOM! A man dissolves like salt-struck snails.

BOOM! His wife feels the vibration a thousand miles over.

BOOM! Infernal wardens' chorus.

BOOM! Medley of hellish reverberation.

That's all that sounds until the noise bleeds his ears and deafens his senses.

How many men have died to his shells in the last three months? A hundred? A thousand? How many others would curse the unknown bombardier who took their leg, their body, cast their mind into the dark? He had never killed a man before the war; he was a baker. Bread was an art. He used to score the flesh of sourdough, knead the folds of Rye, paint the smile of the hungry. He even enjoyed appeasing the gluttony of the too-full. Now maggots and wheat, a seldom withering crust. In some ways, it’s the same. Load the metal inferno. Watch the flames christen the young yeast; today, burn the young man.

Fire cares not the difference; it burns once its master sets its spark, its future in the hands of none but God and the wind.

She had flour on her lips when they last kissed. Their laughter almost masked their tears. The fog settles onto No Man's Land. Oblivion. That's all he can see through the fog. What’s beyond the melancholy vale?

Reaper has paddled his pyre from the Styx to the Somme a hundred thousand times over. This is the weather Reaper relishes. Dark, cold, devoid of any life but the pheromones of humanoid soldier ants…one…two…one..two.

Were those footsteps or rain? An ear-ruptured man with closed eyes can’t tell.

Elise is home.

He’d be home.

The war would end.

The war would end.

He’d meet his daughter.

Who is that gliding from No Man’s Land? Who has made it past the machine gun nests, the razor wire, the pit traps, the mines, the bombs, the death, the reaper, the tendrils of oblivion that rip the two trench lines to separate realities?

Cheekbones like his brother's, rage ticking and fear tocking, a flippant switch flicking on and off a thousand times a second. The glint of a blood moon bathes a stainless steel bayonet as the enemy lunges, a chest bleeds. A gasp escapes, silenced as lungs tread flailing on blood-bathed breaths. The bayonet impales Hans to the muck. The rifle stands straight deep in the baker’s heart. The stock is carved with holy words and god’s praises. It’s too deep to fall. The man, hand on the trigger, doesn’t smile.

He twists the bayonet.

What to do as the soul floats away? General won’t let his troops die without a fight. Hans grips the last stick grenade on his belt beside his notebook.

—ClICK–one..two..one..BOOM!!!

The Styx beckons; two men drown. Quiet like mice, another trench poet dead at the Somme. Death retracts his sickle. The marrow groans, the soul breaches the body. The charred bodies limpen, their fighting grown weak. The men sink to the mud, the mud-worms, the bread-worms, the corpse worms, the flag-worms squiggle that horrible inch. Death’s tithe for an inchworm’s inch. Feast on the flesh. Break down the man. Macerate the mulch. Return to earth, fall from hell.

Escape the Somme.

A trench poet deserts from war, Reaper’s orders. Elise waits at home; she’ll never stop waiting, even when the brick-filled casket is lost to the wormed dirt. Twilight whispers, softly for a minute, a perfect lie of a minute; the Somme quiets, boots, booms, and boys' death knells forget their duty, the field joins the planet. Rain fills hollowed helmets, bathes hallowed men, dried blood runs swallowed by predatory mud. They're buried in the same pit of Somme’s quota, united as one in the only way General allows.

A pretty girl in Strasburg laughs no longer, fries schnitzel for but one plate.

The corpses are soon cleared. The boots reaped and lashed to the next man. Moon hides, bodies rot, the infections fester. Convoy arrives at daybreak’s groan. Church bells bellow from the bombed temples, the cadence of new men in former dead men's boots sounds off in sync. One, two. One, two. Green boys laugh real laughs. Joke about the fat one. Joke about the skinny one. Laugh like the valiant hero’s Recruiter told you were. General gives the recruits the welcome speech, shakes hands through spotless gloved hands, the recruits smile, marching off to battle, war’s not done till none are left to kill. Century later, millennia back. General recites the same speech, same gloves.

For Glory!

For Honor!

For Vengeance!

For Duty!

March off to battle!

Green boy checks his boot. A lone engraving carves the blackened, sewn-together leather. Who was Reed?

Across the battle line. Green boy checks his boot. A lone engraving carves the blackened, sewn-together leather. Who was Fischer?

Green boy forgets as boots sink in mud and bury thought.

Green boy talks to Green boy.

Green Boy befriends Green Boy on his side of No-Mans Land.

Green Boy murders Green Boy on the other parallel of No-Mans Land.

Eleventh Month, eleventh day, eleventh hour. General always liked consistency. General’s always consistent.

War’s finished, General collects his medals. Crosses of Victoria and Iron. Caskets of pine and mahogany.

Years of glory later, General has a cough, dies with plush pillows, paid preacher’s rights to be carried on an ivory palanquin to heaven. His children cry for him, it’s a national day of mourning. Green boy too scared to look at the past, the future is far plusher. He takes his promotion, puts away his poems, studies the failures of a stalemate, learns how to kill better, faster, more detached, less like a poet, less like a man. Puts on his new, even whiter gloves. Walks to the podium, new Green boys by the thousand salute, recruit no longer, General never dies as long as there are young men to salute. A new war starts.

Clock ticks, cycle repeats as old Generals meet new Generals and turn to dust in their mausoleums. From the grave they command: Unsheathe your sword, grab your gun, fly your drone, hoist your flag. Trench poet or not, it doesn't matter, as long as you don’t tire your trigger finger with useless quills and questions. Know you're not the first, know you're not the last. You're the new recruit. Reaper’s general knows next war will be even better as long as there is dead to die and Green Boys to raise arms and salute.

The Chalice Sieve

Author Callum Reed: Concrete poem recovered from a shredded satchel

General won’t ever stop

General never stopped

Sally forth! The blood-soaked pyre awaits

Impale yourself on the Great Spiked Altar

Bleed the soul till General’s chalice full

The chalice holes leak, mess all that’s left

Burn the flame, burn the stain

Burn the boy

Scatter the ashes

Hope, pray phoenixed flags rise uncharred

Go! Bring the next, soak the wood in gas once more

Fill the chalice, hope next war will drown the chalice sieve