‘One of the nuts belonging to the regiment got out of the trenches and started to walk towards the German lines.’
’course we thought they’d gone loco,
each man-jack a sitting duck
armed with naught but mistletoe
and plum-pud. but they were in luck –
the guns were still. in no-man’s-land
and mud we met between the lines,
at a loss for words, each hand
at a trouser seam, until the woodbines
did the rounds, were lit, and someone
shared a bar of bitter chocolate.
one man had news of a poison
that did away with louse and rat,
others, still too stiff to talk, swigged
rum, or got out family photos,
played halma, yelled, swapped
addresses, uniforms, helmets, jocose
till under the sheaves of streaking tracer
on that soft and naked common field
there was nothing left to offer
but the trenches and their nameless yield.