Mametz Wood, May 2016
'Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.'
Robert Graves, 'A Dead Boche'.
On 15th July the 2nd Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers came into the line, amongst them Robert Graves. The fighting for Mametz Wood had concluded three days ago, and the ground was scattered with the dead, 'Prussian Guards, big men, and Royal Welch and South Wales Borderers of the new-army battalions, little men'. The weather was wet and cold, and Graves went into the shattered wood to find German greatcoats to act as blankets for the men. Coming and going by the only possible route, he had to pass by the body of a German.
'Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.'
Robert Graves, 'A Dead Boche'.
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