Waking Moments of a First World War Soldier


Dawn, dark precursor of another year long day,
What nightmare scenes your growing light portrays.
Beside me, sleeping still, in carapace of mud,
My friend cries out as horrors of the previous
Day invade his dreams. No safety now
In trenches. Never ending rain has turned
The leaded plain into a muddy sea,
Criss-crossed by putrid channels where the trenches were.
Sucked down by filth, encumbered by
Their rain soaked gear, our comrades in their thousands
Struggle to a slow and choking death.
The silence of this ugly dawn is broken
By the plop and splash as still more trench escarpments fall.

Floating slowly by I see a muddy lump, with feet askew
On blue ballooning legs; hair, mud encrusted,
Sways and ripples like vile weeds
Across the dismal flats of No-Man's Land.

Last night a German stumbled on our lines,
Exhausted, carrying his wounded friend.
We heard death's rattle. "Er ist todt", (he's dead),
And, tears still channelling his mask, the German slept.

Germans, British, French, we're all the same,
Garbed in mud, exposed to icy winds,
And fearing water more than mines or shells,
A host of men committing suicide,
Not enemies, opposed, intent to kill.

Across flayed fields ungainly forms begin
To stir; a moment's mocking warmth of sun-
Shine mirrors in the swamp the lumbering
Beginning of another day.

Jane A.Meredith November, 1990
Dublin Unitarian Church

Jane wrote this verse some years ago,
having been moved by reading Under Fire by Henri Barbusse.


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