Wirers

The poem, which consists of three stanzas of uneven length, is short and direct. It realistically recreates the atmosphere of trench warfare in World War I and the extremely dangerous nighttime expedition of the British wiring party. The first line, which quotes the words of a British sentry, succinctly states what is happening. A wiring party is going out to repair the barbed wire in no-man’s-land. The sentries pass the message along so everyone is informed, and no one mistakes the movement for enemy action. No-man’s-land was a narrow and desolate strip of land. Varying in length from several hundred yards to as little as ten yards, it stood between the trenches of the opposing armies; in this case, between the British and the Germans. In addition to the barbed wire, no-man’s-land might contain craters and land mines, as well as dead and wounded soldiers, some of whom were trapped on the wire.

Line 3 emphasizes the hard physical labor involved as the barbed wire is repaired, as well as the posts holding it up. The aim is to repair the wire so it slows or prevents the next German attack on the British lines, since well-maintained barbed wire could be virtually impassable. Line 4 makes it clear that the men work with all due speed; there is obviously much to do. They also feel angry. The speaker does not explain why they are angry; they could be angry at the enemy—the Germans— their own officers, the war itself, the difficult and dangerous task they have been assigned, or they could just be feeling a generalized anger about the war and their precarious situation in the muddy and unsanitary trenches.

The danger they are in becomes apparent in Line 5--the first line of the second stanza--when “The Boche” (the slang term used by the British for the Germans) send up a flare, which briefly illumines the scene. This could have been a flare fired from a pistol, which provided illumination for no more than about 15 seconds. As the flare goes up, the wirers freeze; they cannot be seen to be moving, because then the Germans would fire on them. In Line 7, they start moving again, clumsy in the darkness, talking in low voices, sometimes tripping up on a snare.

To give expression to the discordant, ragged effort, Lines 8 and 9 are shorter than the other lines, giving the impression of one line broken in two. The wide indentation of Line 9 also gives the impression of the disruption of normal rhythm exactly as the wiring party is experiencing--a kind of stop-go rhythm due not to the flare, but also to the nature of the work in which they repair each strip of wire and move on to the next piece.

In Lines 9-10, the first glimmer of dawn appears, which means it is time for the men to stop their work and get back to their trenches. However, the speaker describes the coming of dawn, which would normally be a happy sight, in negative terms, as a “ghastly dawn” (Line 9) that “gleams desolate” (Line 10). Nothing in nature is as it should be in this scene; everything is distorted and made horrible by war. Nevertheless, at least the dawn brings to an end the difficult, miserable night the men have endured (Line 10), which is at least something for which to be thankful.

In Stanza 3, the speaker reviews the events of the night, which he has observed. It transpires that at some point the wirers must have come under fire, and there is at least one casualty. The speaker humanizes him as “young Hughes” (Line 11). Hughes is known to the speaker, who observes that the man was mortally wounded. The speaker heard him being carried off (presumably on a stretcher), “moaning” (Line 12) as the stretcher bearers negotiate the uneven terrain. The speaker says in a matter-of-fact way that Hughes will likely die that day; the flat tone suggests he may have witnessed many deaths and is not surprised at this one.

The poem’s punch comes in the final line, Line 13. The tone is one of biting irony. Hughes may be dead, but the speaker says, “we” can say that the purpose of the expedition--to repair the wire--was accomplished. The ostensible meaning is that the British troops, both the wirers and other soldiers, can be satisfied and proud of what they accomplished: They did their job, they performed their duty, even if there was a death. They can expect their superiors to be pleased. The speaker’s real meaning, however, is the opposite. The final line suggests that the job of repairing the wire, and by extension the entire war, was meaningless and stupid; it was not worth it, given the human cost.