"_Un blessé à Montauville--urgent!_"
Calls the sallow-faced _téléphoniste_.
The night is as black as hell's black pit,
There's snow on the wind in the East.
There's snow on the wind, there's rain on the wind,
The cold's like a rat at your bones;
You crank your car till your soul caves in,
But the engine only moans.
The night is as black as hell's black pit;
You feel your crawling way
Along the shell-gutted, gun-gashed road--
How--only God can say.
The 120's and 75's
Are bellowing on the hill;
They're playing at bowls with big trench-mines
Down at the Devil's mill.
Christ! Do you hear that shrapnel tune
Twang through the frightened air?
The _Boches_ are shelling on Montauville--
They're waiting for you up there!
"_Un blessé--urgent?_ Hold your lantern up
While I turn the damned machine!
Easy, just lift him easy now!
Why, the fellow's face is green!"
"_Oui, ça ne dure pas longtemps, tu sais._"
"Here, cover him up--he's cold!
Shove the stretcher--it's stuck! That's it--he's in!"
Poor chap, not twenty years old.
"_Bon-soir, messieurs--à tout à l'heure!_"
And you feel for the hell-struck road.
It's ten miles off to the surgery,
With Death and a boy for your load.
Praise God for that rocket in the trench,
Green on the ghastly sky--
That _camion_ was dead ahead!
Let the _ravitaillement_ by!
"_Courage, mon brave!_ We're almost there!"
God, how the fellow groans--
And you'd give your heart to ease the jolt
Of the ambulance over the stones.
Go on, go on, through the dreadful night--
How--only God He knows!
But now he's still! Aye, it's terribly still
On the way a dead man goes.
"Wake up, you swine asleep! Come out!
_Un blessé--urgent--_damned bad!"
A lamp streams in on the blood-stained white
And the mud-stained blue of the lad.
"_Il est mort, m'sieu!"_ "So the poor chap's dead?"
Just there, then, on the road
You were driving a hearse in the hell-black night,
With Death and a boy for your load.
O dump him down in that yawning shed,
A man at his head and feet;
Take off his ticket, his clothes, his kit,
And give him his winding-sheet.
It's just another _poilu_ that's dead;
You've hauled them every day
Till your soul has ceased to wonder and weep
At war's wild, wanton play.
He died in the winter dark, alone,
In a stinking ambulance,
With God knows what upon his lips--
But on his heart was France!