"THE COMPANY WILL MOVE TO THE FIGHT IN ROARS.
FORM--ROARS! FIGHT!"]
* * * * *
ZERO.
("_Zero-hour_"--_commonly known as "Zero"_--_is the hour fixed for the
opening of an Infantry attack._)
I woke at dawn and flung the window wide.
Behind the hedge the lazy river ran;
The dusky barges idled down the tide;
In the laburnum-tree the birds began;
And it was May and half the world in flower;
I saw the sun creep over an Eastward brow,
And thought, "It may be, this is Zero-hour;
Somewhere the lads are 'going over' now."
Somewhere the guns speak sudden on the height
And build for miles their battlement of fire;
Somewhere the men that shivered all the night
Peer anxious forth and scramble through the wire,
Swarm slowly out to where the Maxims bark,
And green and red the panic rockets rise;
And Hell is loosed, and shyly sings a lark,
And the red sun climbs sadly up the skies.
Now they have won some sepulchred Gavrelle,
Some shattered homes in their own dust concealed;
Now no Bosch troubles them nor any shell,
But almost quiet holds the thankful field,
While men draw breath, and down the Arras road
Come the slow mules with battle's dreary stores,
And there is time to see the wounded stowed,
And stretcher-squads besiege the doctors' doors.
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