Gaukroger’s war was over.
Gaukroger, too, was through.
A piece of him here,
a piece over there.
Not the Peace that he wanted
in his last forlorn prayer
Gaukroger was a fellow second lieutenant
and survival was not his forte.
For days after death he lay there unburied
Nor could I make my eyes turn away.
We’d been sent to this place
to be forward observers.
enemy guns found the range.
Gaukroger died quickly,
without even a goodbye.
Sometimes, after,
I wished for the same.
When I looked for Boche,
Gaukroger stared back
A steady and reproving stare
At night the rats came,
larger than cats,
by next morning
my friend wasn’t there.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 9:17 PM UTC
Gaukroger’s war was over.
Gaukroger, too, was through.
A piece of him here,
a piece over there.
Not the Peace that he wanted
in his last forlorn prayer
Gaukroger was a fellow second lieutenant
and survival was not his forte.
For days after death he lay there unburied
Nor could I make my eyes turn away.
We’d been sent to this place
to be forward observers.
enemy guns found the range.
Gaukroger died quickly,
without even a goodbye.
Sometimes, after,
I wished for the same.
When I looked for Boche,
Gaukroger stared back
A steady and reproving stare
At night the rats came,
larger than cats,
by next morning
my friend wasn’t there.
After this horrifying episode, where he was left alone in no man's land for days with the corpse of a fellow officer, Wilfred Owen was transferred to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh where he wrote most of his great poetry while convalescing
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