Is it seven days you’ve been lying there
Out in the cold,
Feeling the damp, chill circlet of flesh
Loosen its hold
On muscles and sinews and bones,
You can read the rest of the poem here http://war-poetry.livejournal.com/23503.html
‘Cannon Fodder’ (originally ‘Carrion’ but revised at his horrified parents’ request) was written in September 1917 at Flanders where he served as a machine-gunner on the front-line at Passchendaele. It bitterly contrasts the proliferation of severed body-parts and rotting corpses, an everyday experience for Alec, with comforting delusions back home over the heroic nobility of a soldier’s death. Michael G. Brennan: Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family, p. 3