Toady I became a man – Remembrance

Today, I became a man!

Mam today I became a man.
Just like me dad, grandad, and great-grandad a’fore me, Mam.
Today they took me for a soldier. Me, and me pals, Mam.
Me pals and me, we’re to be a battalion for the town;
we’ll be proper “Bolton Wanderers”, me pals and me, Mam.
We’ll be off to Waterloo just like me great-grandad, Mam.

Sad he didn’t come home again to his bride:
But us, us we’re going by train from Waterloo,
to serve in Flanders’ fields just like great-grandad; a hundred years since,
How grandad would stand so proud to see our lads march out from town in our new khaki uniforms, polished black boots; our childhood gone.
Just as did he to fight against the Russian Bear in the Crimea these six decades done

For him to see the gallant cavalry charge in glory, down the valley into the hungry mouths of the guns; and for him the hell of winter’s test.
Cheered from the hospital at Scutari, leaving former life and frozen limb behind, coming home to a peaceful rest, Mam?
And me dad, aye me dadMam: his war was with the Boer!
No’ but twenty years have passed.
He served his Queen and Country as well as any man.
Mam? How do you bear his loss so far away under that baking South African sun?

Mam! Me and me pals are far from the sparse comforts of home and family life.
Not for us, me and me pals, to be “Bolton’s Wanderers”;
we exist in holes cut from the clay of Flander’s Fields.
We dig in, and dig ourselves out again when the Hun is at his hateful worst with whizz bangs, shells and all.
Holes deep with liquid mud, and the remains of men, and mules, and horses too!
All lost in the quaking ground when driven down by the guns, and flying shrapnel, as their deadly load whizzes and hisses about our heads.
Mam; in this garish hell I am comforted by thoughts of your loving, tender care, Mam.

Mam: today I became a man like them that came before!
Me pals and me, we rose up from our positions as dawn’s pale light, and the cacophony of our barrage,
shouted orders and the shrill whistles of the officers, drove off the terrors of the night.
We marched, proud as the day me and me pals were cheered on our pre-embarkation day parade: pals and proud sons of our town..
Out across the shell-torn ground and through the tattered wire we walked, straight and strong, into the mouths of the chattering guns and hell!

Me dad, grandad and great-grandad are proud of me today, Mam.
I didn’t falter or flinch, even when the heavy sod fell over me.
His weight pushed me down into the mud you see!
Me: Mam! Buried beneath me clumsy pal who, with his last stride, fell o’er me as the ground gave way with a muffled roar when the shell exploded in the muck beneath me feet.
Me, and me pals, Mam: we are now at peace; with dad, grandad and great-grandad too, as we lie here in Flander’s Fields, not so very far from Waterloo.

Written with fond memories of the old men, whose lives were spared to return to their mothers and sweethearts, who influenced my childhood days. Especially my grandfathers who served during the Great War 1914-1918, One as a cavalryman and machine gunner with the South Nott’s Hussars in the Middle East., The other in the Army Service Corps delivering supplies and ammunition to the front lines in Flanders, then carrying back broken men to the rear, for the treatment of their wounds in forward dressing stations and yet others further back to the relative peace and security of the base hospitals. Repatriation, with a “Blighty one”.

Never really the same again!

Anthony J Davis

25th October 2020.

Balaclava Day. (1854)

First day of the 1st Battle for Ypres (1914)