Free Voices of Silence by Vivien Noakes

points the engine stutters.
    Fires burn in every truck. Rich shadows play
    Over the vivid faces . . . bunched figures. Some one mutters
    ‘Rainin’ again . . . it’s raining.’
    Slammings – a few shouts – quicker
    Each truck the same moves on.
    Weary rain eddies after
    Drifts where the deep fires flicker.
    Into the dark with laughter
    The last truck wags . . . it is gone.
    II
    Horns that sound in the night when very few are keeping
    Unwilling vigil, and the moonlit air
    Is chill, and everything around is sleeping –
    Horns that call on a long low note – ah, where
    Were you calling me last?
    The ghastly huntsman hunts no more, they say
    The Arcadian fields are drugged with blood and clay.
    And is Romance not past?
    III
    The station in this watch seems full of ghosts.
    Above revolves an opalescent lift
    Of smoke and moonlight in the roof. And hosts
    Of pallid refugees and children, shift
    About the barriers in a ceaseless drift.
    Forms sleeping crowd beneath the rifle-rack,
    Upon the bookstall, in the carts. They seem
    All to be grey and burdened. Blue and black,
    Khaki and red, are blended, as a dream
    Into eternal grey, and from the back
    They stagger from this darkness into light
    And move and shout
    And sing a little, and move on and out
    Unready, and again, into the night.
    IV
    The windows in the Post Office are lit with olive gold.
    Across the bridge serene and old
    White barges beyond count
    Lie down the cold canal
    Where the lost shadows fall;
    And a transparent city shines upon a magic mount.
    Now fired with turkis blue and green
    Where the first sunshine plays
    The dawn tiptoes between
    Waiting her signal from the woodland ways . . .
    Carola Oman
    The Route March
(With apologies to Dr Brown)
    This route march is a blighted thing – God wot.
    The sun –
    How hot!
    No breeze!
    No pewter pot!
    He is a blooming pool
    Of grease –
    ‘The Sarge’,
    And yet the fool
    (He’s large)
    Pretends that he is not.
    Not wet!
    Foot-slogging over Belgian ways –
    In summer blaze!
    Ah! but I have a sign;
    The sweat
    Keeps dripping off this blessed nose of mine.
    F.W. Harvey
    A Halt on the March
    Rifle and pack are laid aside,
    Tunic and shirt are open wide,
    No longer we stumble and curse in the dusty straggling line,
    But deep we lie in the grass,
    Watching the great clouds pass,
    And the scent of the earth is like wine to us, beakers of cool green wine.
    We smoke together and smile,
    Good comrades, knowing no guile,
    While a frail moon hangs in the blue, and the day goes down like a song.
    No shadows mock our little life,
    As they did in days before the strife,
    But the twilight, the stars and the dawn are kind, and we suffer no wrong.
    J.B. Priestley
    The Squadron Takes the Ford
    As we ride downhill at ease,
    Two and two,
    Shines the river through the trees
    Into view,
    With a sparkle and a sheen
    Caught in glimpses through the green;
    And we check with one accord
    For the ford.
    From the moving column floats
    Dusty haze,
    Dust is in our thirsty throats:
    Summer’s blaze
    Glows on khaki, flames on steel,
    Till we scorch from head to heel –
    But the ford is full in sight,
    Cool and bright.
    Trampled pebbles shining fly
    As we splash
    Through the shallows, flinging high
    Foam and flash:
    Jewels drip from hoof and flank
    As we scramble up the bank,
    While the troubled ripples clear
    In the rear.
    W. Kersley Holmes
    ‘In the Pink’ – A Letter
    Dearest Florrie, Came to anchor after 10 miles on a road
    Which for stones would beat a quarry and for mud a bloomin’ sink,
    I am lying in a farmyard, where we’re making our abode,
    And I hope you’re doing nicely, as this leaves me in the pink.
    Well, we’ve marched for miles on cobbles, which is dreadful for the feet,
    Past the fertile fields of France, which have a most peculiar stink;
    And we’ve smoked that French tobacco, and it much resembles peat,
    And we’ve tried a few French liquors which they leaves me in the pink.
    We haven’t seen a German, but