| George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917. |
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| 87. Headquarters |
| | | By Gilbert Frankau |
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| A LEAGUE and a league from the trenches—from the traversed maze of the lines, | |
| Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines, | |
| And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines— | |
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| Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom | |
| In the garden beyond the windows of my littered | 5 |
| working room?) We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom. | |
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| Fair, on each lettered numbered square—crossroad and mound and wire, | |
| Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement—lie the targets their mouths desire; | |
| Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire. | |
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| And ever the type-keys chatter; and ever our keen wires bring | 10 |
| Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing: | |
| And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns thundering. | |
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| Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench lines crawl, | |
| Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging, shrapnel’s fall— | |
| Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall. | 15 |
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| For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close…. There is scarcely a leaf astir | |
| In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur | |
| The blaze of some woman’s roses…. | |
| “Bombardment orders, sir.” | |
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