This Man's Army: A War in Fifty-odd Sonnets |
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Common terms and phrases
ain't Banyuls Bar-le-Duc bars blaze bleak BLERCOURT blue bombs Bonsoir BREST Byrrh CAMP UPTON CHIPILLY RIDGE REGIMENTAL clouds cockeyed cognac CONCERT BY ELSIE CORBIE TO SAILLY-LE-SEC d'you damn dark Debout les morts DIVISIONAL MANEUVERS dusk dust dusty ELSIE JANIS eyes FROMEREVILLE gimme guys Harbonnières HEADQUARTERS TROOP BARRACKS HEADQUARTERS TROOP KITCHEN heart hell Here's Hershey bar hills horse HUPPY Landrecourt LEMPIRE ENTENTE CORDIALE light look Mairie MAN'S ARMY MAPS FROM HEADQUARTERS mess Messieurs MOLLIENS-AU-BOIS BRITISH moon NIGHT WATCH OISEMONT OLD ARMY GAME orchard patois raid rain reek REGIMENTAL DRESSING STATION REGIMENTAL MAPS ROAD TO BAYONVILLERS ROAD TO CORBIE S'ENSEVELIR SECOND BATTALION HEADQUARTERS shadow shells sidecar silence sleep slopes soldiers SOUILLY HOSPITAL stars streak swell tell Tommy Toot sweet train trees TRONVILLE-EN-BARROIS trucks U.C. BERKELEY University of California valley Verdun Voie Sacrée wake walls what's wwww Yessir
Popular passages
Page 13 - You're in the army now you're not behind the plow you'll never get rich you son of a bitch and they heard me and weren't mad but said not to sing that even if all the other kids were singing it I think dad wasn't sure and said he said son of a bee didn't he and mom said yes he did and I did but I didn't know it I really didn't know it...
Page 12 - HUPPY So many shadows that the air is green . . . Light catches in the upper leaves and dies along the slim white belfry by the park. Ducks waddle home, self-conscious on the ground. Some trim young Red Tabs in a limousine scatter a drifting dust cloud in our eyes. A soldier blithely whistles Joan of Arc. Gates shut and jangle . . . Bugles thinly sound . . . Twilight, and after mess a round of 'fine.
Page 4 - ... passing somewhere, and my eyes stare at the stars fixed in their bleak dismay, search all along the fumbling clouds, and peer through the black cordage of the dizzy mast into the haunted moon. And all this lies beyond me, where the grim destroyers play. Here is a thing in which I have no part — it drives me down, below, where men are near. I stumble on them — fiercely glad, at last, to hear "For Christ's sake Buddy have a heart!
Page 49 - Like hell, what makes you think it's yours?" "Don't turn of the water, that ain't fair I'm all covered with soap." "Hurry up, get out of the way." "Thank God you're takin