Captain Corn, the title did not mean much; Captain! Captain, who ran alongside his privates into No Man’s Land.

Captain, who dodged the bullets and mines,

And hid under a grisly mask from the glowing gas.

Stumbling over the top he herded the cattle into the fields.

The death fields, the killing fields.

Lambs to the slaughter.

Barbed wire twisted animatedly around his squadron, Moving of their own accord and strangling twitching men.

Sparks lit the fields like a lightning storm as guns blew.

Men trod over decayed corpses hurtling to their own demise,

And miles behind Generals plotted their deaths over a banquet.

Once lush grass sunk into a muddy ooze paved with blood.

Captain Corn, whose sole job was to force cattle to the abattoir,

Cursed his cursed existence.

Comrades shared the squalor.

Months of waiting in sodden, cold trenches for their doom.

Bodies fell agonisingly; lost limbs strewn about, devoured by war.

One blast after another as lightening belted upon them,

Smoke and gas dropped, torturing paralysed sinking souls.

Shaking as froth foamed at his mouth Corn grasped his mask,

Forcing it over his bloodied face as he fell into the swamp.

Through green mist he watched his squadron murdered,

By men sitting behind the front lines.

He no longer felt his legs.

Even the rats scampered away waiting hungrily for the dawn.

Night blurred into day revealing the tortured souls’ grave.

Echoes hummed from the battle, shrill sounds of screams,

And guns flew through the mausoleum.

Only rats moved;

Sharp teeth gnawed cruelly at the limbs of the dead and dying.

Beyond the human wreckage echoed a desperate thud.

Again, the thud came, like a tolling flat bell, Metal being smashed.

Heaving onto his senseless limbs Corn crawled through the mire,

Of bodies, dirt, shells, limbs and rats.

Open eyes stared;

The dead eyes of his fallen comrades.

He lurched on, with hope.

An abandoned tank, death machine, partially sunk in the filth,

Corn hoped that there was a soul to save, pleaded with God.

The thudding came again, and again.

Thudding pleas for release.

Corn tapped against the evil weapon, his energy fading.

Captain Corn, the title did not mean much; Captain!

Captain, who led his friends to their death under orders.

Captain, who dodged the bullets and mines, And hid under a grisly mask as rats ate his friends.

Heaving himself up on frozen limbs he opened the tank,

Desperate to release his friend and comrade trapped within.

Heaving himself up he fell into the armoured vehicle, There his dead eyes met the dead eyes of Coward Corn.