THROWING AN EGG GRENADE...

Throwing An Egg Grenade

Scuffed, mud-caked pungent boots

Had slithered and rushed me downwards

Into a body strewn shell-hole,

Where a Kapitän writhed in abject pain

And pleaded for the aid I might provide…

One leg lay fractured between dislodged tree roots,

Angled, awry and twisted inwards;

His agony palpable, so that his eyes rolled.

And in assessing his wounds, I saw only disdain,

Then pressed myself down, my presence to hide…

English accents soon bellowed nearer,

They needed to be diverted from here

And I scanned the crater for my inspiration,

An Eierhandgranate in a dead man’s gear…

Playing goalkeeper before the war,

Throwing had been an asset of mine;

I could sling a heavy leather football

Almost to the half-way line…

Thus I grasped the egg grenade by its ribbon,

Looped it over my index finger and bowled

The missile, which arced with its weight

Then exploded as men screamed, then lay cold…

Scarred, anchoring blood-caked boots

Wrenched my splinted patient towards

A no-man’s-land from that hell-hole

But the officer’s strength seemed soon to wane:

Incontinent, incapable, as incoherently he cried…

I hauled him, dragged him, minus his boots,

Slithering, sweating, unerringly backwards,

But then his sobbing ceased, his young head lolled

And pushing his eyelids shut, I tugged sadly again

This corpse to which the wretched Kaiser had lied…

Pete Ray

January 2017

THE EIERHANDGRANATE, OR EGG GRENADE...

MY DAD'S DAD...

...& POST WAR...

MOM'S DAD: JOINED AT 14 OR 15 TO GO TO THE BOER WAR...

...& BECAME A REGIMENTAL SERGEANT MAJOR DURING WW1.
HE SITS ABOVE THE CHAP LOUNGING ON THE GROUND.

UNFIT & POST WAR...

Found an ‘Eierhandgranate’, or egg grenade in a cabinet at Stratford Armouries, which I had to purchase.

Lighter and more portable than the heavier ‘Kugelhandgranate’ and more manageable than the Stick grenade, these missiles could be hurled 40 metres or more.

There was usually a 5 second detonation lapse.

The wire loop aided slinging…

Inside was a mixture of gunpowder, aluminium and barium nitrate… 

The one I have is a Model 17, introduced in 1917…

My two Royal Warwickshire Regiment grandfathers fought in World War 1 and one became a Regimental Sergeant Major, due to being a career soldier anyway.

The other chap had previously been a regular soldier and was thus called up and posted in December 1914, to a place close to where the Royal Warwickshires took part in the famous ‘Christmas Truce’… 

My poem reflects an imaginary scenario, during which a German medic attempts to attend a mortally injured Captain in a shell-hole…