The “distant rest” described in the poem is likely a forward base away from the action, however this is purely in a literal sense. The soldiers are likely in a great state of mental fatigue along with the physical, and this distant rest can also come to mean a reprieve away from the terrible reality they had come face to face with.

He says distance rest referring to back to camp but I believe there is a bigger picture behind it. By distance rest in reality he means death because you cant rest when your dead but when your still alive you better be ready to fight. So when he says towards our distance rest we began to trudge they began to walk to their death, and they know it, and have accepted this fact.

Wilfred Owen uses alliteration in this line to create the terrible visage of a man suffering before his death. White eyes writhing, writhing generally thought of with other things, such as maggots or something else equally grotesque. For Owen to use this metaphor in regards to a man’s eyes is nothing less than a highly disturbing visual.

He watches the white eyes meaning, his friends see the light and go onto their next life. He is there watching his friends die and there is nothing he can do except watch the life leave their eyes because he there is nothing he can do to save them and he has to keep fighting.

“white eyes” is a pretty literal description of a dead person with wide-open eyes who died in pain or shock. The whites of the eyes are very visible (the old Hollywood scene with the eyes slowly closing at death is pure bullshit- people often die with their eyes wide open), and that’s what happened here. He’s dead, but his eyes are still wide-open as if he’s still suffering the pain.