The lights begin to leap along the lines,

Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out;

A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines;

I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!

Time was (in Dorsetshire) I loved the trade;

Far other is this battle in the waste,

Wherein, each night, though not of course afraid,

I wriggle round with ill-concealed distaste,

Where who can say what menace is not nigh,

What ambushed foe, what unexploded crump,

And the glad worm, aspiring to the sky,

Emerges suddenly and makes you jump.

Where either all is still, so still one feels

That something huge must presently explode,

And back, far back, is heard the noise of wheels

From Prussian waggons on the Douai road;

And flares shoot upward with a startling hiss

And fall, and flame intolerably close,

So that it seems no living man could miss—

How huge my head must look, my legs how gross!—

Or the live air is full of droning hums

And cracking whips and whispering snakes of fire,

And a loud buzz of conversation comes

From Simpson's party putting out some wire.

Or else—as when some soloist is done

And the hushed orchestra may now begin—

A sudden rage inflames the placid Hun

And scouts lie naked in a world of din.

The sullen bomb dissolves in singing shapes;

The whizz-bang jostles it—too fast to flee;

Machine-guns chatter like demented apes—

And, goodness, can it all be meant for me?

It can and is. And such are small affairs

Compared with Tompkins and his Lewis gun,

Or eager folk who play about with flares,

And, like as not, mistake me for a Hun;

Compared with when some gunner, having dined,

To show his guest the glories of his art

'Poops off a round or two,' which burst behind,

But fail to drown the beating of my heart

Sweet to all soldiers is the rearward view;

To infanteers how grand the gunners' case!

And I suppose men pine at G.H.Q.

For the rich ease of people at the Base.

To me is sweet this mean and noisome ditch,

When on my belly I must issue out

Into the night, inscrutable as pitch—

I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!

A.P.H.