Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III (Revised & Expanded Edition)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knocked-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And toward our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the boots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire lime. — Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watched the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Bitten as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.[1]