The Call of the Wounded

This poem was written by my Grandfather who was with the R.A.M.C. in WW1

The Call of the Wounded

Said the blithe young man to his Lady fair
As they wended their way across Leicester Square
“Let’s have an evening off once more
And forget all about the dreadful war”

So they took their way to a café near
And ate good dinners and drank good cheer
And chatted and smiled with the old love lore
And forgot all about the dreadful war.

On a Belgian field, mid the wounded lay
A soldier whose life-blood gushed away,
For weak was he, and hardly knew
If strong enough, what he should do.

The time went on and the hour grew late
For the fight was fierce and the need was great,
And the wounded soldier lay quite still
Unseen both by those that save and kill.

As the bearers spread across the field
Some came where our soldier lay concealed.
When the doctor saw him, he simply said,
“Arterial haemorrhage – he is dead”.

If only one man had quickly come
And pressed this wound with a steady thumb,
He’d have saved this life and the man would be
On the way to his home, across the sea.

In a few days time, when the paper came,
The blithe young man saw his best friends name.
He had “died of his wounds” two nights before:
When the blithe young man “forgot the war”.

May 1915

Written by John Leonard Noble. RAMC