Silent As the Grave: Tenth Battle Stations

 

 

 

The Folly

Battle Stations

 

 

---

 

 

Silent As the Grave

 

Llewellyn affords to himself some feeling of offence

Brought on by the pressures of exigency, his given consent

And of necessity, in the person of Mission Director

a title found in files, coded by initials MD

buried in the secretest of offices under the blandest street

of Whitehall

these, by this, bomb-proofed, but in event of disaster, TBB

Never, any of it, amongst associates spoken aloud

At sunset, at the Brigands’ Rock

Which boasts a hollow near the top

Said to fit the boots of Captain Jack

A Bristol pirate and highwayman

(and not the many others of that name)

The colleagues meet

The vantage is indeed supreme

No traveller along the road can pass unseen

This whole affair of Atherleigh

has left the few who know the truth

Outplayed.

They watch the Germans carefully

Their chap, who’d winkled all the story

of Agnes, had befriended Krug…just enough

For a chat each day, stopping after his Zeitung

‘Cove’s really nothing. They don’t know either where the woman

has gone. And that little item Atherleigh was meant to pass on…’

A pffft, expressed with hand and lips…

‘Krug’ (chuckle) ‘has himself so much anxiety, poor lad.

He’ll be recalled. It can’t be helped.’

Your full-assimilated London Kraut, no doubt

is worst, and another, now, they’ll have to run to earth

All this speaks not to the confounding, blasphemous cheek

with which Llewellyn must endure

 

 

 

---

Silent As the Grave

A Failure of Intelligence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2020, Stephanie Foster)