Ridge Attack Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Whistle ready for the boots' clambering
At the off … over the top … shell-fire led:
An unfamiliar distance singing … stinging …
Bright from the wire and the ridge ahead.

The One-Pip's yelling, revolver firing
The sergeant curses and takes a fall
Stumbling forward stifles rifles' aiming
It's no longer the time for one for all.

Uncoordinated mindless chaos
Blood raised and spilled in clamorous terror
Emptied with killing, eddied with loss
A vortex of scrambling, fumbling error.

The company now ragged and tiring
Orders forgotten as the watch hands still,
With losses so heavy it's time for retiring
No chance today of retaking the hill.

Back in the trench, rum and stretchers out
Bound for the wounded in No-mans-land
They'll not get far from the first redoubt
The task is too hard for the war-worn hand.

At nightfall, sounds from the darkening lands
As the broken pray and the dying pass
The fingers of numbers of failing hands
Grasping and scratching tear-stained glass.