Base Details
Siegfried Sassoon * Track #7 On Counter-Attack and Other Poems
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Album Counter-Attack and Other Poems
Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon
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Siegfried SassoonAbout
‘Base Detail’s is a satirical poem on the attitudes of the senior officers. The title is a pun, base meaning headquarters and the alternative despised or worthless.
The word ‘detail’ is also a pun meaning precise and close information, but also a small group of soldiers with a specific task. So the...
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Base Details Annotated
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.