( the sky ) `` my name is wilf , '' the man says , standing alone in the fog , though i can hear hundreds behind him , hear their fears and their readiness to fight if they must- and they must- but something in the man 's voice- even as the first rows of soldiers on their battlemores line up next to me , weapons at the ready , burning and blazing and ready to fight- the man 's voice- it is as open as a bird 's , as a pack animal 's , as the surface of a lake- open and true and incapable of deceit- and it is a channel , a channel for the voices behind him , those voices of the clearing hidden in the fog , full of fear , full of dread- full of the wish that this would end- full of the wish for peace- you have shown how false that wish is , i show to the man called wilf .