Explore "Ammunition Column" by Gilbert Frankau on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_I am only a cog in a giant machine, a link of an endless / chain: -- _ / _And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds are fired,_ / _and the empties return again; _ / _'Railroad, lorry, and limber; battery, column, and park; _ / _'To the shelf where the set fuse waits the breech, from_ / _the quay where the shells embark._ / We have watered and fed, and eaten our beef; the / long dull day drags by, / As I sit here watching our "Archibalds" _strafing_ an empty sky; / Puff and flash on the far-off blue round the speck / one guesses the plane -- / Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is fed by the endless / chain.
I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little link in the chain, / Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that the guns are hungry / again: -- / _Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and battery-wagon to gun; _ / _To the loader kneeling 'twixt trail and wheel from the_ / _shops where the steam-lathes run._ / There's a lone mule braying against the line where / the mud cakes fetlock-deep!