Axis & Allies - damowords

A Game of Chess
The workers spent their hard‐earn’d half an hour
Gather’d around blindfolded Botvinik,
Barely exercising his chess power,
Beating some young patzer with a fork trick;
Purposeful cough
Disturbs the ego show,
He takes the blindfold off, a message from Moscow!
His foreman perused the pages
Of that amazing letter,
“It seems, Mikhael, you are famous
No more a mere sheet cutter,
With you lies our future in chess
When the war is over…”
“Yes,” said the master, “a war we shall win…”
& nobody could doubt his knowing grin.
As he work’d upon the Dragon,
Sharp Yugoslav Attack,
White’s H pawn on the sixth… “White’s won…
What’s this” An exchange sac ‐
Forth with furious energy broke the forces of black.
The Urals
October
1943
War’s Shadow
Armour’d car swept up the serpentine road
Of the mount of Saint Benedict’s abbey,
The general steps out, clutching a sword,
Eyes saccading cross the Liri Valley;
The position
Rules a wide area,
“Twill have to be taken afore Casilina…”
Boot nails echoed round the cloisters
Where stood Dom Gregorio,
Flank’d by seven very pious
Monks of Montecassino,
“To stay here vud be dangerous…”
“No! no! we must not go!”
“Very well, but may I suggest promptly
Transport thy treasures to safe sanctuary.”
They placed gold‐laced legatura,
Corali, tapestries,
Mellin, Conca, Solimena,
Great bibles in lorries,
Each guarded by two monks drove north for Roman galleries.
Italy
October 16 th
1943