FIC: Penultimate Retreat

Title: Penultimate Retreat
Author: Alex
Fandom: War Horse
Rating: PG
Word count: 1643
Pairing: Major Jamie Stewart/Captain Jim Nicholls
Disclaimer: War Horse is property of Michael Morpurgo.
Summary: Words spoken and unspoken on the night before a charge.
Notes: To cataclyzmic, for cheering me when I felt blue.

Come in this hour to set my spirit free
When earth is no more mine though night goes out,
And stretching forth these arms I cannot be
Lord of winged sunrise and dim Arcady:
When fieldward boys far off with clack and shout
From orchards scare the birds in sudden rout,
Come, ere my heart grows cold and full of doubt,
In the still summer dawns that waken me.

When the first lark goes up to look for day
And morning glimmers out of dreams, come then
Out of the songless valleys, over grey
Wide misty lands to bring me on my way:
For I am lone, a dweller among men
Hungered for what my heart shall never say.

---Before Day, Siegfried Sassoon

( Two-man tents squatted in irregular little clumps on the blessedly dry woodland floor.... )