More Wider Reading Extracts / Texts

Here are some wider reading extracts:

A Letter Home (To Robert Graves)

I

Here I'm sitting in the gloom
Of my quiet attic room.
France goes rolling all around,
Fledged with forest May has crowned.
And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted,
Thinking how the fighting started,
Wondering when we'll ever end it,
Back to hell with Kaiser sent it,
Gag the noise, pack up and go,
Clockwork soldiers in a row.
I've got better things to do
Than to waste my time on you.

II

Robert, when I drowse to-night,
Skirting lawns of sleep to chase
Shifting dreams in mazy light,
Somewhere then I'll see your face
Turning back to bid me follow
Where I wag my arms and hollo,
Over hedges hasting after
Crooked smile and baffling laughter,
Running tireless, floating, leaping,
Down your web-hung woods and valleys,
Where the glowworm stars are peeping,
Till I find you, quiet as stone
On a hill-top all alone,
Staring outward, gravely pondering
Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.

III

You and I have walked together
In the starving winter weather.
We've been glad because we knew
Time's too short and friends are few.
We've been sad because we missed
One whose yellow head was kissed
By the gods, who thought about him
Till they couldn't do without him.
Now he's here again; I've been
Soldier David dressed in green,
Standing in a wood that swings
To the madrigal he sings.
He's come back, all mirth and glory,
Like the prince in a fairy tory.
Winter called him far away;
Blossoms bring him home with May.

IV

Well, I know you'll swear it's true
That you found him decked in blue
Striding up through morning-land
With a cloud on either hand.
Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches
Arm-in-arm with aoks and larches;
Hides all night in hilly nooks,
Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.
Yet, it's certain, here he teaches
Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches.
And I'm sure, as here I stand,
That he shines through every land,
That he sings in every place
Where we're thinking of his face.

V

Robert, there's a war in France;
Everywhere men bang and blunder,
Sweat and swear and worship Chance,
Creep and blink through cannon thunder.
Rifles crack and bullets flick,
Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.
Bones are smashed and buried quick.
Yet, through stunning battle storms,
All the while I watch the spark
Lit to guide me; for I know
Dreams will triumph, though the dark
Scowls above me where I go.
You can hear me; you can mingle
Radiant folly with my jingle.
War's a joke for me and you
While we know such dreams are true!

Siegfried Sassoon

 

World War One Diary of A. W. Miller

Sept. 29^th 1918.

This has been a day of violence and death. Ten men in my platoon, including myself, were selected to go Over the Top with the machine gun company when the big attach started at 6am. We took up our position in a trench as per orders and stood waiting for zero hour. As near as I can recall, I wasn't afraid, but I realized fully, as I glanced out over No Man’s Land, that many of us would die there very soon. Dawn was just breaking when suddenly a Verey signal light went up and then with one accord thousands of guns opened fire and filled the air overhead with shrieking shells. The earth shook, and for a moment I was dazed by the awful magnitude of the barrage. We scrambled over the parapet, dragging our one pounder behind us but before we had advanced many hundreds of yards a German shell blew up our gun and wounded Donnelly & Campano. A piece of shrapnel crashed through a steel mirror which I carried in my left breast pocket, but didn't penetrate through a thick package of letters underneath. I was knocked down, and almost lost consciousness. By this time the Germans had put up a terrific counter barrage and I was caught in the open. I dove headlong into a small shell hole, just made, and lay there wondering how long it would be before I went west. Shells were exploding all around me but I was hit only by chunks of flying dirt. I realized that my chances of living through a barrage in that small shell hole were very slender, so muttering a half forgotten prayer I ran hell bent for election to a trench.

 

‘Kill the Lice’ – Robert Graves

'At stand-to rum and tea were served out. I had a look at the German trenches through a periscope - a streak of sandbags four hundred yards away. Some of these were made of coloured stuff, whether for camouflage or from a shortage of plain canvas I do not know. There was no sign of the enemy, except for a wisp or two of wood-smoke where they, too, were boiling up a hot drink. Between us and them was a flat meadow with cornflowers, marguerites and poppies growing in the long grass, a few shell holes, the bushes I had seen the night before, the wreck of an aeroplane, our barbed wire and theirs. A thousand yards away was a big ruined house, behind that a red-brick village (Auchy), poplars and haystacks, a tall chimney, another village (Haisnes). Half- right was a pithead and smaller slag-heaps. La Bassee lay half-left; the sun caught the weathervane of the church and made it twinkle.

I went off for a sleep. The time between stand-to and breakfast was the easy part of the day. The men who were not getting in a bit of extra sleep sat about talking and smoking, writing letters home, cleaning their rifles, running their thumb-nails up the seams of their shirts to kill the lice, gambling. Lice were a standing joke. Young Bumford handed me one like this. 'We was just having an argument as to whether it was best to kill the old ones or the young ones, sir. Morgan here says that if you kill the old ones, the young ones will die of grief, but Parry here, sir, he says that the young ones are easier to kill and you can catch the old ones when they come to the funeral.' He appealed to me as an arbiter. 'You've been to college, sir, haven't you?' I said: 'Yes, I had, but so had Crawshay Bailey's brother Norwich.' This was held to be a wonderfully witty answer. Crawshay Bailey is one of the idiotic songs of Wales. (Crawshay Bailey himself 'had an engine and he couldn't make it go,' and all his relations in the song had similar shortcomings. Crawshay Bailey's brother Norwich, for instance, was fond of oatmeal porridge, and was sent to Cardiff College, for to get a bit of knowledge.) After that I had no trouble with the platoon at all. Breakfast at company headquarters was bacon, eggs, coffee, toast and marmalade. There were three chairs and two ammunition-boxes to sit on. Accustomed to company commanders in England not taking their junior officers into their confidence, I was struck by the way that questions of the day were settled at meal-times by a sort of board-meeting with Dunn as chairman. On this first morning there was a long debate as to the best way of keeping sentries awake. Dunn finally decided to issue a company order against sentries leaning up against the traverse; it made them sleepy. Besides, when they fired their rifles the flash would come always from the same place. The Germans might fix a rifle on the spot after a time. I told Dunn of the bullet that came between Beaumont and myself. 'Sounds like a fixed rifle,' he said, 'because not one aimed shot in a hundred comes as close as that at night. And we had a chap killed in that very traverse the night we came in.' The Bavarian Guards Reserve were opposite us at the time and their shooting was good. They had complete control of the sniping situation. '