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Title: Battalion-Relief
Author: Siegfried Sassoon [
More Titles by Sassoon]
"_Fall in! Now, get a move on!_" (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country green with June....
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon
Up in the Line. "_Perhaps the War'll be done
By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!_"
Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge.
"_Lead on there by platoons._" The Line's a-glare
With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle
Of rifles and machine-guns. "_Fritz is there!
Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_"
More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles.
"There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles.
"_What's all this mob, by the cross-road?_" (The guides)....
"_Lead on with Number One_" (And off they go.)
"_Three-minute intervals._" ... Poor blundering files,
Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know
If death will catch them in those two dark miles?
(More rain.) "_Lead on, Headquarters._"
(That's the lot.)
"_Who's that? O, Sergeant-major; don't get shot!
And tell me, have we won this war or not?_"
[The end]
Siegfried Sassoon's poem: Battalion-Relief
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