ROC May '76

November is war poetry month.
It will be on war, military, death and other morbid stuff.

The following poem was about some of my experiences during my national service days. Okay, it was not actually a war, but an exercise to prepare us for war.
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ROC May '76

In stony silence,
in fits of exhaution,
we hunched & huddled
in the blood-red mud
& watched the 81s opened up
punishing the hills beyond the ridge.
Not for us the adage of glory and country
but faraway images of home,
a beer, a shower, & a woman to cuddle.

We hunched together
waiting
the final manouvers of the battle.

Its tracks gouging out clumps of clay
a tank broke cover,
lumbered up a shell-scarred slope,
an armoured caterpillar.
Somewhere to the east, defiant GPMGs chattered.

All around us rolled
a fine drizzle
like cold gunsmoke,
& a stench of cordite and diesel.
And riverlets of rain flow down dented helmets
to sweat stained brows.
No cheers, no haste
(have you tried lighting a wet cigarette ?)
we heaved ourselves up with giant efforts
laden with packs and weapons and fatigue
and coaxed tired limbs
in mud-caked boots
to trudge a final kilometre to base.

09-04-88