The Constant Tin Soldier
This is a long poem in two parts, Breaking Day (114 Lines) and Spoils of Peace (139 lines). It's all here so you can read the whole poem but for the Poetry By Heart recitation competition, you just need to choose a sequence of at least three consecutive sections from Breaking Day. There are 10 sections: the first two stanzas are one section, then there are nine sections which each begin with a single line on its own. A large group of students (6+) might recite all 10 sections, taking parts.
1. Breaking Day
Dying is easier.
Just a flick of somebody's finger,
Then the icy exactness of rigor mortis,
While posthumous flies and decorations settle,
A subaltern writes thirty-two letters
By torchlight to next of kin,
And the Germans advance in your boots,
Which are better than theirs.
It isn't always lucky to stay alive.
Some never recover from surviving.
The showy heraldry of scars excuses,
But not the chronic tic of terror,
Picked up on a foggy March morning
Between the Staffords and the Suffolks,
Between Bullecourt and Croisilles.
You will carry this day like a tumour
In your head for life, fusilier,
And no one will ever needle it out.
You remember the date:
21st March, 1918. Day
Of the Kaiserschlacht, day
Of the German Spring Offensive.
We, the beaten, have no name for that day
In our own language.
You remember your place:
Third Army, 34th Division,
102nd brigade, HQ Gomiecourt
(Which I never saw) under
Lt Col Charlton (whom I never
Saw again after. Only now, sixty years on,
A youngster tells me he was taken prisoner.
I thought him killed).
23rd Northumberland Fusiliers.
You remember the weather:
Sun on the 20th, following rain
And squally winds. Enemy weathermen
Prophesied continuing calm. It would be safe,
They said, to use gas against us. Then
An intense, still morning; no wind;
But ground mist ghosting
To dense, inimical fog.
You remember the timing:
0440 hours: artillery bombardment begins.
Five hours of General Surprise Fire.
The German brass, guns, mortars and howitzers,
Jarring in unison. It rained noise,
Mud, bone, hot lumps of jagged metal,
Gas, smoke, fear, darkness, dissolution
By the clock, if any clock ticked on.
0940 hours: infantry attack begins,
Across the broken earth, the broken men.
An orderly advance; they sauntered
Over the unstrung landscape.
You remember your state:
Fear, fog, solitude,
Between Bullecourt and Croisilles,
Between the Staffords and the Suffolks.
We had to man the Forward Zone,
But creeping with the creeping fog
Came in the enemy. We knew them
By the shape of their helmets. They were
Where we were. Nothing was where
It had been on the map, and no one
Was one of us. The counties melted,
And their quiet local voices. My friend
Died, I was on my own.
You remember your mood:
Orphaned. The formal beauty
Of rank, its cordial courteous bearing,
Had foundered. No one to give
Or receive orders. Our training
Was scrappy; we had never studied
The delicate art of retreat, and our trumpets
Had mud in their throats.
You remember your choice:
Flight. Through craters, corpses,
Stumps of horses, guns and trees,
Through fog and my everyman darkness.
What are the rules for the solitary
Soldier? Should he stand firm
To the last pointless volley,
Or lay down his arms at the feet
Of kind enemies, and be whisked
By their finished techniques
To a snug internment? No one
Had drilled enterprise into us.
Choice had been frightened to death.
I could do only what I did,
What the primitive man I muzzle
Inside me made me do: I ran.
You remember the sequel:
Rehabilitation. The comfort of being
Among confederates, men
Who had hobbled their way back, stubbornly,
Without heroism. Most of us still
Had our uses. Mine was liaison
With American troops. Gigantic,
Buoyant, ignorant, they trod
Our shellshocked fief, as once their ancestors
Trampled across the New World.
I guided them along the labyrinths,
Interpreted, explained, a ghost of war,
Leading the living down the dead men's trenches.
You remember your self:
I had archaic longings,
Yearned for the dead and the lost,
The officers, the other ranks, the men
I belonged with, who knew the same songs,
Shouted on United. Not even
Graves for most, just Memorials
To the Missing. I missed them,
All the canny Geordie lads
With their feet still through the night
And the days.
2. Spoils of Peace
Some of the dead were signallers:
Rupert The Fair and Wilfred The Wise,
Isaac the exile and innocent Ivor,
And Edward, who endured.
In various ways, these died,
And so, afterwards, in some ways,
Some of the living perhaps listened.
The dead can afford to be generous,
Having no superannuation rights.
These men squandered the spoils of war,
But I latched on to my red-edged learning,
Investing sensibly in job, house, car,
Wife and children, dog and skivvy.
Redoubts and outworks, manned by me,
To balk the enemy at my back.
I couldn't afford to be taken
The same way twice; kept short accounts,
Checked the wiring, planted sharp roses,
Trained the dog to the qui vive.
But upkeep has to be paid for. I traded
My craftsman's hands for a salesman's pay.
Built my house on my tongue. Charm
Was the mortar, the brickwork cheek.
In a world fit for heroes, heroism
Is de trop. You have to fight
With guile for your rights, against
The agenda-adept, the minutes-men.
I mastered the means that made men mine,
Not shadows, to fade in the gassed thicket,
But beefy reliable cheque-signing fingers,
Dewlaps to dance at my bagman's patter.
I held the line, from Wallsend to Workington,
Where the Romans were, I came.
Chatted up waitresses, chaffed the barmen,
Sold my soul to keep myself safe.
(Not between Croisilles and Bullecourt.)
Good morning!
Good gracious!
Nice day.
Delightful.
Any tonics, tinctures or pick-me-ups?
No.
Thank you. I'll call again.
Good morning.
Nice day.
Where the wind whips over the fraying border,
Where homesick legions were whittled away,
On the frontier of failure I jobbed and prospered,
Natty, dapper, with my quickfire smile.
Not the dovetailed sockets, the tonguing and grooving,
The crisscross network I could have carved,
But a web of hardheaded sceptical buyers,
Whom I forced at jokepoint to be my friends.
Good morning!
Good morning.
Nice day.
Yes.
Any false rumours, horrors or hangovers?
No thank you.
I'll call again.
Do.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Shocking day.
Back at HQ the walls stood firm.
I saw to that. But the garrison
Could never be trusted. Maids
Came and went, children were born
And died. The dog too. I procured
Replacements, held weekly inspections,
Reviewed morale, kept up my payments,
Insured house, contents and livestock, checked
The defences. There was nothing amiss.
But somehow I had enlisted
A saboteur, not a friend (my friend
Died). She gave me nothing
To complain of; collaborated in all
Transactions, performed creditably
At trade functions, answered the telephone
Adequately. But I didn't like
The sort of book she read. Disaffection
Was plain in her children. The boy
A myopic coward, whose only solution
Was running away. Then the girl
Who died. I forget her name now,
But she cost me a mint of money
At the time, one way and the other.
As for the substitute, I recognized
A usurper in her. She'd have ousted
Me, taken my place if she could,
Mutinous, sulky, and damnably
Heir to my look and my hands.
I had carved out a kingdom
For my son to inherit. But he
Renegued, would have none of it,
Fancied his own improvident way,
Instead of cultivating my contacts.
Married a fatherless, unsuitable
Outspoken girl from down south somewhere,
Ran to the opposite end of the earth
And stayed there. Good riddance.
One less mouth to feed, one less craven
In the camp. The girl deserted too,
After a prolonged, costly education
Without a dividend. No hope there
Of a son-in-law, someone I could
Have trusted, canny chap, living close,
To keep an eye on the wiring, the blood-pressure,
Someone I could have taken to, without
That yellow streak in him. But I managed
Without. Anticipated the next assault
(Infirmity, loneliness, death) and took
Precautionary measures: transferred HQ
To a high-rise residence for the well-heeled,
Heated centrally, caretakered, with lift,
Where care would be taken.
Here we live now, annuitied. I ignore
The persistent trickle of offstage
Deaths, as my feebler contemporaries
Fall out. Life has taught me
To concentrate on living. This I do.
My primitive man is dead, crushed
By cordial years of cronies. I couldn't
Speak straight now if I tried.
I am the kerbside cheapjack's patter:
Ladies, watch what I do.
The genuine article. 20 pound in the catalogue,
18 in the shops, 15 in the sales. But from me -
Stand close, ladies - a fiver!
Ladies, watch what I do.
Watch, ladies, what I do.
Holidays abroad yearly, until age
Made us uninsurable. Now a five-star
Scottish hydro, where I am known
To the management. I am still standing to,
Between the Staffords and the Suffolks,
As I have been for most of my life.
I may be only a tin soldier,
But I have been constant.