Geoffrey Wall
SOLDIER, back from the distant fray,
With the bandaged arm and the ribbon gay,
Where have you been so long away,
And what have your travels taught you ?
The changing, curious crowd sways by,
But you watch it pass with a vacant eye,
And ever anon you heave a sigh,
As some hidden memory wrought you.
The city street is bright with flags,
But, besides your wounds, your footstep drags.
Is your mind fixed on those leaden crags
And the dead you left behind you?
You have done as much as a man may do,
Though you could not stay to see it through.
Is it only this ? Or tell me true,
Are there shadows that remind you?
“Oh, I’ve followed the colours, God knows where,
And I’ve witnessed things that I can’t declare,”
He said, and, despite his martial air,
A sudden terror filled him.
“But over there on Gallipoli
There’s a nameless grave by an azure sea
(And I couldn’t tell what his rank might be),
I only know I killed him.
“I know ’twas a case of his life or mine.
Somehow I’d strayed from the transport line,
And sudden, topping a parched incline,
I saw him right before me.
The Turk was just as scared as I,
He didn’t think to move or cry,
So we stared for a moment eye to eye,
While a wave of fear rolled o’er me.
“I’d a fleeting thought of the wife and child
That he’d left behind. Then the beggar smiled,
And something about it made me wild.
He smiled — and I pulled the trigger.
. . . And so he swayed a little space,
While the slow smile faded from his face
And then he tottered from his place,
And sprawled — a ghastly figure.
“I stood with the smoking rifle, so —
‘Neath the white hot sky, with the sea below,
And the shrivelled grass waved to and fro,
And those sightless eyes seemed peering
Out past the skies with a cold stare set.
So limp he lay — I can see him yet —
And his twisted face I can never forget —
Reproachful, cold, and leering.”
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is unsettling. It’s not about victory, or even heroism, but about what war does to a person once the fighting is over. The soldier has returned, bandaged and decorated, but he’s not really present. The parade and the city streets mean nothing to him. He’s stuck in a moment that won’t let go.
At first, it seems like he’s just tired, maybe lost in thought. But as he starts to speak, the real weight of his experience comes through. His story isn’t about a battle or a great triumph—it’s about one moment, one enemy soldier, one terrible decision. The killing was instinctual, almost inevitable, but what haunts him isn’t the act itself—it’s the look on the man’s face before and after.
The way he describes it is unnervingly vivid. The moment stretches out, with the two men staring at each other, both terrified, both just human. Then, the Turk smiles. That detail is disturbing because it’s so unexpected—why would he smile? Maybe it was nervousness, maybe resignation, maybe something else entirely. Whatever it was, it pushed the soldier over the edge. He pulled the trigger, and now that smile is burned into his mind forever.
The last stanza is where the horror sets in. The dead man is just lying there, but to the soldier, he isn’t gone. His eyes are still staring, his face is still twisted, and even the landscape around him—hot sun, dry grass, endless sky—feels like it’s part of the crime. The leering, reproachful look isn’t just a memory; it’s a ghost that won’t let him go.
This poem doesn’t glorify war. It doesn’t even talk about the larger cause. It just shows what it’s like to live with the things you had to do to survive. The soldier came home, but a part of him is still out there, standing on that parched hillside, looking down at the face of the man he killed.