Jack Ellyat heard the guns with…

Jack Ellyat heard the guns with a knock at his heart When he first heard them. They were going to be in it, soon. He wondered how it would feel. They would win, of course, But how would it feel? He’d never killed anything much. Ducks and rabbits, but ducks and rabbits weren’t men. He’d never even seen a man killed, a man die, Except Uncle Amos, and Uncle Amos was old. He saw a red sop spreading across the close Feathers of a duck’s breast—it had been all right, But now it made him feel sick for a while, somehow. Then they were down on the ground, and they were firing, And that was all right—just fire as you fired at drill.” Was anyone firing at them? He couldn’t tell. There was a stone bridge. Were there rebels beyond the bridge? The shot he was firing now might go and kill rebels But it didn’t feel like it. A man down the line Fell and rolled flat, with a minor coughing sound And then was quiet. Ellyat felt the cough In the pit of his stomach a minute. But, after that, it was just like a man falling down. It was all so calm except for their guns and the distant Shake in the air of cannon. No more men were hit, And, after a while, they all got up and marched on. If Rebels had been by the bridge, the rebels were gone, And they were going on somewhere, you couldn’t say where, Just marching along the way that they always did. The only funny thing was, leaving the man Who had made that cough, back there in the trampled grass With the red stain sopping through the blue of his coat Like the stain on a duck’s breast. He hardly knew the man But it felt funny to leave him just lying there.