Down in the valley the barrage fell,
Fountains of water and steel and smoke,
Scream of demons and blast of hell,
The flash that blinds and the fumes that choke.
The mud and the wire have chained the feet,
You are up to the knees in swamp and slime,
There's a laugh when the crossing is once complete,
But a setting of teeth for the second time.

Down in the valley the shambles lay
With the sordid horrors of hate revealed,
Tattered khaki and shattered grey
And the splintered wrecks of a battlefield.
Thank God for the end that is sure and swift,
For the fate that comes with a leap and bound,
But what if God leaves you alone to drift
To the lingering death in the pestilent ground?

Up on the slope was a line hard pressed
By bullets and shells and relentless strain,
An enemy massing behind the crest
And a trench that crumbled in fire and rain.
Sleepless, shelterless, night and day,
Drenched and weary and sniped and shelled,
The word was given that come what may
The line must hold, and the line was held.

But all who pass to the crumbling trench
Must go in the spirit that games with fate,