Page:Sassoon, Siegfried - Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918).djvu/24

 A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. An officer came blundering down the trench: "Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went. . . Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step. . . counter-attack!"
 * Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
 * Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;
 * And stumbling figures looming out in front.
 * "O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat,

And he remembered his rifle. . . rapid fire. ..