I AM only a cog in a giant machine, a link of an endless chain:— @3And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds are fired, and the empties return again; Railroad, lorry, and limber; battery, column, and park; To the shelf where the set fuse waits the breech, from the quay where the shells embark.@1 We have watered and fed, and eaten our beef; the long dull day drags by, As I sit here watching our "Archibalds" @3strafing@1 an empty sky; Puff and flash on the far-off blue round the speck one guesses the plane— Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is fed by the endless chain. I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little link in the chain, Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that the guns are hungry again:— @3Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and battery-wagon to gun; To the loader kneeling 'twixt trail and wheel from the shops where the steam- lathes run.@1 There's a lone mule braying against the line where the mud cakes fetlock-deep; There's a lone soul humming a hint of a song in the barn where the drivers sleep; And I hear the pash of the orderly's horse as he canters him down the lane— Another cog in the gun-machine, a link in the selfsame chain. I am only a cog in a giant machine, but a vital link in the chain; And the Captain has sent from the wagon-line to fill his wagons again;— @3From wagon-limber to gunpit dump; from loader's forearm at breech, To the working-party that melts away when the shrapnel bullets screech.@1— So the restless section pulls out once more in column of route from the right At the tail of a blood-red afternoon; so the flux of another night Bears back the wagons we fill at dawn to the sleeping column again ... Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link in the chain! |