Cauterised

The soldier's breath was heavy

As the lids above his eyes

He sprawled beside the levee

With his mangled, bloody thighs

The bullets and the shouting

Were fading to the west

And silence was approaching

In the air and in his breast

The field was draped with remnants

The limbs and bones of boys

Those that breathed begged penance

Or screamed an awful noise

The air was thick with torment

The breeze, it stank of death

So many lay there dormant

They'd breathed their final breath

Our soldier groaned again

All shrapnel pocked and still

As blood ebbed from his vein

And on the earth did spill

As he prepared to die

On that lonely, foreign field

He contemplated why?

What result would his death yield?

Then suddenly a face

Appeared before his own

'We'll take you back to base'

it said. But he could only moan

The blessed blackness claimed him

As they moved him to the cot

That day he lost a limb

Which on that field would rot

His artery was oozing

A torn and bloody mess

There wasn't too much choosing

The surgeon did his best

The options were all dire

And time was growing thin

To seal the wound with fire

To cauterise the shin

The blade betwixt the flame

Til metal glowed white-hot

The surgeon took his aim

Then cleansed the crucial spot

The soldier whimpered weakly

As the fire seared his knee

The nurses watched on bleakly

Too much death they'd had to see

Perhaps that youth would die

Or maybe he would mend

But that shadow in his eye

Would be there 'til the end