Page:Armistice Day.djvu/63

Rh (This was his first trip over) as he said:

"I wish we'd go; one might as well be dead

As in this slaughter-pen. What fools we are!

What poor, damned fools!" ...

A murmur from afar

Like wind through winter branches rose and fell

Along the line,—and up we went pell-mell,

Kicking the ladders backward in the mud,—

Crazy as loons, thirsting for German blood!

Then broke the storm like thunder on the plain!

The heavens roared—the shrapnel fell like rain;

Through the dun mist of dawn we groped and ran

In a long wave up that infernal hill,

Dodging black stumps and blacker pits until

I tripped on what had one time been a man

And fell headlong with a torn and bleeding thigh—

Angry and helpless while the storm drove by;

Thinking of John and the children there I lay

And watched the sullen sky grow ashen gray ...

They found him hanging dead upon the wire,—

Caught like a fly in a huge spider-net ...

In a few days the Colonel came to inquire

If I were well, and how my leg was set:

"You should have seen the troops! God! They were splendid!"

"Was the wire cut?" I asked.

His laughter ended.