CHAPTER XIV
A Field of Battle
The men who stand to their rifles
See all the dead on the plain
Rise at the hour of midnight
To fight their battles again.
Each to his place in the combat,
All to the parts they played,
With bayonet brisk to its purpose,
With rifle and hand-grenade.
Shadow races with shadow,
Steel comes quick on steel,
Swords that are deadly silent,
And shadows that do not feel.
And shades recoil and recover,
And fade away as they fall
In the space between the trenches,
And the watchers see it all.
I lay down in the trench and was just dropping off to sleep when a message came along the trench.
"Any volunteers to help to carry out wounded?" was the call.
Four of us volunteered and a guide conducted us along to the firing line. He was a soldier of the 23rd London, the regiment which had made the charge the night before; he limped a little, a dejected look was in his face and his whole appearance betokened great weariness.
"How did you get on last night?" I asked him.