DAWN:

The grey and wind-blown and dry dust,
raised in clouds by the breezy gust;
the tank echelon soldiers “cussed”
the clinging of the sandy dust:

link, link, link, lay-the-track – link,
HECK-toring, rattling, metal clink;
black, rubber feet cushioning the track’d link
wipe coarse rock-dust with hot-rubber ink.

EARLY:

The Carrier leaks hot engine oil,
wending from its rearmost belly-plate
an infant river flowers through the sand,
to the fan-like, oil-dirt deltas:
creeping to the brown, gloomy mere.
Stunt fir trees cringe on the water’s edge,
seeking safety from the black oil slicks
that slop, thickly, on the stagnant water:
an odour of burnt engine oil
and cold fuel, floats from the pool:
greasy, blackened grasses, grimily
compete for clean sand, with careless spills.
Rainsfall in hazy, maze-like curtains,
painting circles of light upon oil
and shallow, dead, lapping water.
A water-saturated log floats,
oil-born within and upon the slick;
a frog cries from a sandy shoreline,
he hops, leaving his oily footprint;
tadpoles. from spawn, float in crowded rot:
a mute trumpet-call to life, and death.

LUNCHTIME:

One Exercise upon the Soltau Plan
I cut my finger on a can.
Rather than using a leaf
I wrapped it with corned beef.

AFTERNOON:

Six Scorpions in a line,
their engines a rumbling whine;
the crews, working and readying
their chargers prior to range-firing.

Heavy concussive guns echo in the damp air,
other people, other guns, another range at Höhne.

Chieftains in simulated hides
at the edge of the range rides,
eight hundred and fifty horses,
pawses, channels and courses, then forces
the fifty tons of battle tank
from the night hides and down the bank.
Machine guns rattle in air
spitting red tracers from their lair.

“Six-hundred-COAX-little-old-ladies-on-knoll-FIRE!”

link, link, link, lay-the-track – link,
HECK-toring, rattling, metal clink;
black, rubber feet cushioning the track’d link
wipe coarse rock-dust with hot-rubber ink.

A heavy metallic ‘chunk’, the muzzle lifts and falls. “Loaded!”
“SABOT-one-two-hundred-teapot-beside-bunker-FIRE!”
The order is repeated, the barrel drops,
the gunner lays sight and barrel onto his target:
the loader checks his safety guard and switch,
then settles the next round in his clutch.
The gunner yells, “Firing now!” Then blinks his eyes.
The gun slams back mechanically; even slowly,
the breech block drops and some fumes enter the turret.

Outside, a flourescent orange fireball roars from the muzzle,
the barrel is forced backwards; as the round, now a red dot,
seems to pounce upon the target, as a single ray of light,
from the first spark to the kinetic flash of target doom:
the ear-defenders are squeezed into your ears
and hot gasses, ash and shreds of bag-charge swirl in your face.
The big rubber concertina, around the barrel, by the turret,
is squeezed tight; then the gun barrel waddles forward.
Six seconds later a second round joins the first. Over-kill.

ASIDE:

On ranges the loader lost his hand,
the gunner fired, and watched it land,
and yelled, “Minus-two-hundred-ADD!”
“I fear this is a passing fad.”

WAITING:

The firing circuit light shows red;
the safety switches are all at fire;
the gun is loaded and the guard made:
the loader crouches, head against the wall,
knees slightly bent, with a small tremble,
a fresh round is cradled in his arms.
The others sit, tensely waiting the word,
the gunner re-checks his target’s range,
and fingers his firing and selector switches;
eases his foot on the MG firing pedal,
taps his foot on the RMG pedal,
and rocks, back and forth, on his small seat.
The commander wipes his hands on his parka,
eases the headset, under his beret,
checks through his sight, flexes his hand,
pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs his eyes,
he checks his switches and selectors
and checks the gunner’s and loader’s and gun’s
switches, selectors and indicators.
The commander flips to i/c and checks the driver,
flips off, and wonders, again, why any sane man…

MOVE:

The grey and wind-blown and dry dust,
raised in clouds by the breezy gust;
the tank echelon soldiers “cussed”
the clinging of the sandy dust:

link, link, link, lay-the-track – link,
HECK-toring, rattling, metal clink;
black, rubber feet cushioning the track’d link
wipe coarse rock-dust with hot-rubber ink.

DUSK:

A cigarette stub floats in a puddle,
music blares in tuneless muddle
and a breeze freshens the air,
the storm clouds depart;
and a renewed, cleanly world
stirs itself at the edge of dusk.

Heavy lorry engines roar in the distance,
someone coughs; a car with blaring music, goes.
A landrover whines passed on the road,
then a tractor, grumbling with trailers of muck.

A pile of black-painted, rusty cartridges,
of the twenty-millimetre varieties,
obscenely erect by winter-garbed trees.

Yellow-painted granite stones mark
the extent of range and tank park;
and the yellow, squared concrete:
the firing point complete.

A trooper in green coveralls, wearing a combat smock,
carries a sub-machine gun slung from one shoulder;
the range guard, trudges, wetly and slowly passed,
his DMS boots grating in the wet, gritty sand.

A silhouette bird balances on top of a birch,
warbling and whistling, an out-of-season tree bauble,
balancing in the wind in the failing light.
The cigarette stub swirls in the water.

The car is back, and the music, louder still,
beating the listener in the ears and brain,
contemptuous of the evening peace.

A juvenile silver birch, imprisoned in the chill sand,
sandwiched between the dreadfully noisy car
and a galvanised-steel industrial dustbin.

Behind the tree is a knoll, on top of which stands
the Range control shack, two radio masts and a flagpole;
the whole is enclosed by a tidy, single-bar fence.

A whisper of cloud streams flag-like,
in the sky, behind the flagpole:
the sun has nearly gone, leaving last rays
that turn everything into silhouettes.

Black, stark, wintered shapes
strengthened by the setting sun’s spill rays:
as yet remaining individual,
not yet anonymous in the twilight.

EVENSONG:

Window enlightened blackness,
darkened military greenness;
the antenna masts, cloud-reaching,
their taut guy-lines softly singing:
the night is black and wet and cold,
touched by Water Spirits of olde,
in that beginning of Earth’s age;
before the military rage.

Dark rain and darker shadow,
hide the sorrowful epitaph
of the memory cenotaph:
two wars celebrated, somehow,
as though both of them in the stone
for Man’s doings elsewhere will atone.