It's time to leave! It's time to leave!
The distant grumbling of thunder draws closer,
as the ghosts, fighting in darkness,
return to the shore.
Four squads, but only boats for two.
Leave some behind.
Strong men bark at themselves,
hustling, panting, praying.
Until the whip cracks, snap to catch
To the wounded the air is filled with shooting stars.
No, they are tracers.
Gunners talking guns,
tracking, trapping, racking, rattling, raking
Rockets sizzle zipping threw slits
until fiery booming blast falls.
A race to the ground, for everyone.
Let them go.
Several fall, some gracefully, some stumble,
some to pain, some to the cold Reaper
who saunters down the line,
envying the warriors, grinning at the bleeding dead.
And with a bony grip prepares a strike.
But that's when the Corpsmen,
cry No to the Reaper.
They fight their battle, bandages their blades,
morphine their mortars, the flow of blood their balisage.
A duel with death in the midst of a fight for life.
A flare, green and bright,
lighting the trees, the brush, and the water,
for the angels that will come by sea,
in an eerie flickering light.
A light of chemicals burning in reaction to contact.
Another flare, this one red,
revealing the shapes of devils, shrieking
and howling in the dark.
The flare goes out. No more light.
Only darkness setting upon the shore.
Except for the shooting stars,
coming in from the sea.
We will not leave them behind.