"'Louder, Jerry, louder. I cawn't understand, the voices are mixed. Jerry, it's your brother a-callin'; what is it, lad, what is it?'
"Every second we expected to see his brains spatter the parapet from a German sniper's bullet. Suddenly, Crack! Crack! Crack! three bullets struck the parapet and went singing over the trench. We all ducked, but apparently Jerry's brother never moved.
"With a deep sigh he sank onto the firestep, saying, 'I can 'ear the voices, but as yet cawn't understand 'em, but I will—I will—it tykes trainin'.'
"I believe he did not know that he had been fired at. Anyway it never fazed him. My blood curdled at the thought of how near he had come to joining those spirits of his.
"Ikey placed his hand on Jerry's brother's knee and said:
"'Righto, mate, we know you can see far beyond us, but tell us about 'Aunted Jerry an' the poem 'e wrote the d'y before 'e clicked it at the Lone Tree.'
"Jerry's brother nodded in a comprehending way, and unbuttoning the pocket of his tunic, drew out a creased and muddy piece of paper, which he reverently and fondly opened out upon his knee, and then in an unnatural, sing-song voice, which sent cold shivers up and down my spine, recited the following, reading from the paper."
At this point Dick started searching the pockets of his tunic, pulling out, piece by piece, a collection of stuff that would have made a junk-man sit up and take notice. A look of disappointment came over Dick's face; he paused, thought hard for about a minute, and then with an exclamation of satisfaction, went over to his pack and extricated therefrom an old leather wallet, opened it and carefully removed a piece of paper, muddy, creased and torn. With a sigh of relief he exclaimed, "Blime me, I thought I had lost that poem. One of Jerry's brother's mates gave it to me after,—but that would be telling the story backwards."
Squinting very hard at the paper in his hand, Dick read aloud:
"Between the lines, in 'No Man's Land,'
With foliage gone, an' trunk what's torn,
A lonely sentry tykes 'is stand,
Silently watchin' from morn to morn.
When sun is gone, an' moon is bright,
An' spreads its rays o' ghost-like beams;
H'against the sky, that tree o' blight,
A ghastly 'angman's gibbet seems.
When night is black, the wind's faint sigh
Through its shell-torn branches moans
A call to men, 'To die, to die!'
They answers with groans and groans.
But obey the call, for 'more an' more,'
An' Death sits by an' grins an' grins,
Watchin' the fast growin' score,
'Arvest of 'is sentry's whims.
There they lie 'uddled, friend an' foe,
Ghastly 'eaps, h'English, French an' 'Un,
An' still those piles forever grow,
The sorry toll is never done.
No wooden cross to mark their fall,
No tombstone theirs, no carven rocks,
Just the Lone Tree with its grim call,
Which forever mocks an' mocks."