Bridge-Guard in the Karroo – Leslie Fish

(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the empty metals shine—
No, not combatants—only
Details guarding the line.)

“Bridge-Guard in the Karroo” by Rudyard Kipling, set to music and sung by Leslie Fish.  The poem is said (by Wikipedia) to evoke “the loneliness experienced by blockhouse soldiers at Ketting station on the Dwyka River while guarding the Karoo railway track, a lifeline during the South African War.”  Thank god for Wikipedia, because I know nothing about the South African War.