Soldier poets of the Great War (VI): Encountering corpses in no-man’s land

Arthur
Graeme West leads a small night patrol that encounters

...half a dozen men

All blown to bits, an
archipelago

Of corrupt fragments,
vexing to us three.

Even
more horribly, Edgell Rickword grows comfortable with a corpse lying out in
front of his position, and reads aloud to him -- until the body rot grows too
repulsive:

He stank so badly,
though we were great chums

I had to leave him;
then rats ate his thumbs.