Yesterday, I laid a solemn wreath in Regimental Square.
Then, when standing up, and in that moment’s quiet pause;
With hand on heart, with eyes downcast,
I could not but think that you weren’t there,
That brave, bold memory from my past.

Where are you now? I thought. Where might you be?
While standing there and quite alone.
I’d never been with you like this, you see,
Laying wreaths and standing still.
We almost always used to be
Returning fire and lying prone.

But now, in retrospect and after thought,
Here, while drawing back the curtains to my past.
I realise you’ve been here, always at my side;
And of my memories you will always be my first, my last;
Laughing, scorning those with whom we fought
With such exuberance, and with such an awful pride.

Weary Sun, your sleepy eyes
With lidded shadows tip the night.
While water gently lips the shore
And swoops the owl in whispering flight.
Small, twitching nostrils quest the air,
And daytime slides from out of sight.

Cast from your mind the busy day.
Look not to labours left undone.
Take this moment, for yourself to say,
‘Now is the time that of my mind I will enquire.’
Draw up your knees and sit content
Before the warm and flickering fire.

Nigel was a Scotchman
Who wore the kilt an aw,
He stained it with some marmalade
And rubbed his sporran raw.

A habit from his army days
When dressed in jungle green.
And pretty girls were few and far
And Nigel far too mean

To spend his hard-earned pennies
On bowls of mutton stew,
So, he took to nightly rubbing
Of his sporran - wouldn’t you?

But we all love you, Nigel.
Aye, hail, and rain doth blaw,
You great Scotch *** in jam smeared kilt.
Ye Guffey **** an aw.

'Twas a bitter, November morning,
With wind, icy hale, and some snow.
And one's fingers too cold to do buttons up.
If you served at Carlisle, you would know.

And I was recruit in the Army,
We were formed up for morning parade.
I thought my World had gone barmy
As I listened to Sergeant’s tirade.

He was going on about rifles,
That working parts had to be clean.
So that we would **** all the enemy.
I thought he were just being mean.

But then he asked for my weapon.
Never call it a gun.
It is cardinal sin in the Army,
Even to say it in fun.

Now, I know I had started to clean it.
But pull-through had, sort of, got stuck.
When corporal had told me to get outside room
To pick up yesterday's muck.

Before breakfast our mornings were bedlam,
And I was always in trouble,
For corporal kept bellowing orders to room,
Wanting everything done at the double.

So, pull-through remained in my rifle.
'T’were there when we fell in for drill.
And when sergeant asked for to look at it
I suddenly felt terribly ill.

He took it and grasped it by muzzle and stock,
There was no need to pull back the slide,
For I had to leave all the working parts out
'Cos. there ‘weren't’ room with pull-through inside.

When sergeant saw this, he just looked at me.
Through me 't’were better it said.
Then suddenly: 'Cheshire', he screamed, 'Who gave me you?'
And: 'Why do I wish you were dead?'

There was nowt I could say back to sergeant,
Upset, as he was, standing there.
Useless explaining my pull-through,
And more than I ever would dare.

I knew it was going to happen.
There was nowt I could say in the snow.
For as sergeant gave back my rifle, he snarled
'To the guard room, double, now go.'

I was warned about joining Army,
I was told that it would not be fun,
But nobody told me the trouble I'd have
With that pull-through stuck in my gun.

All the way with L. B. J.,
Was what we said back in the day.
But what it meant, if truth to tell,
Was two years servitude in hell.
That is, for those without the bent
For service life, cared where they went.
Most of them, well, from what we saw,
Without preamble went to war.

'But Lyndon Johnston told the nation
Have no fear of escalation',
This, a song of protest from that day.
But for those that really cared
(Another word for being scared?),
It didn't stop them being sent away
To twelve months service and a war.
So tragic now. What was it for?

And when Nixon asked the British
For the Black Watch, they turned skittish.
And the Parliament it stood to tell him no.
They thought it was unreasoned war
And that is what the people saw,
And so, the Black Watch weren't allowed to go.
And yet we here went 'All the way...',
And for our dead - now rue the day.

Were they really the good old days?

I used to bicycle to school when I was young and on the go.
And in Wintertime I mind it was not nice.
We kids would ride our bikes
Through slush, and often through the snow.
On surfaces made treacherous by ice.

My bike was put together with parts filched from ******* pit.
Parts garnered here and there and taken to my home.
I washed them first in kerosene, then soaked in oil each bit.
Once assembled, then the World was mine to roam.

Although it looked quite battered and it rattled every ride,
And the wheels, they wobbled, and it had a squeak.
That bike was mine, all mine, and if you classify by pride
I reckon RollsRoyce would not stand a chance, well, so's to speak.

But the brakes on that bike they never worked.
And its metal handlebars were bare.
And in Winter it was scary stuff,
Because of brakes, and ice on roads,
And never having gloves to wear.

At school (with bike stowed in racks) I would join the queue.
My runny nose and hurting ears,
Numbed hands and fingertips quite blue.
Shivering, cold before the classroom door,
Waiting for my turn at taps and running water,
And for my hands to thaw.

For us to go out scrumping
As often as might be.
We would reconnoiter every day
To find an apple tree.

Whenever someone found one
Then all would try to see
How quickly could they climb up there
Into that apple tree.

Now, in my dotage, I believe
Our children should be free
To stretch their bodies and their minds,
To climb the apple tree.

A Reflection:
Beside that track in jungle green
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.),
Sweat-soaked, *****, and unseen
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.).
These young men who crouch, so still
They poise to pounce, to make their ****,
In doing so they do your will. Just
Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.

Platoon, or Company, Section strong
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.),
Led by those who do no wrong
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.).
Trained by the same consummate skill,
Focused thus to do your will,
But - yours to pay is the butchers' bill; if you
Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.

And when they stop, too old to serve
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.).
Ensure they get what they deserve
(Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.).
For at that time, they must not find
That you and yours have changed your mind.
If might you then feel less than kind, don't
Bare the bayonet, beat the drum.

The Army of Lord Cardigan,
Its uniforms so smart,
The men, although they had never fought,
Dressed such, they looked the part.

The Fourth, the Thirteenth Light Dragoon’s,
The Eighth, the Eleventh Hussars, all made,
If you include the Seventeenth,
What then they called The Light Brigade:

Mounted, fast, but lightly armoured.
Launched at guns as they retreat,
And cutting down the infantry
With thrusting Lance if e’er they’d meet.

Skirmishing; reconnaissance.
The Light Brigade took pride to be
Proud horsemen, hard and ruthless men,
Well - British Cavalry.

And Brudenell, ‘twas his, the boast,
Had dressed his men to please his sight.
His officers? Yes, they looked like fops,
But make no bones, those men could fight.

‘Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent them carrying away the guns.’

General Raglan drafted orders,
He could see what should be done.
He sent to Lucan via Nolan,
Ordering him to charge the gun.

But Lucan redirected Nolan,
‘Speak to Cardigan,’ the man
Who, when told ‘attack the Russians,’
Said ‘Well, if you think I can.’

‘But which guns does my lord desire
We charge, what does the General say?’
And though he full knew where the guns were,
Nolan waved a different way.

‘There, my lord, there is your enemy.
There, my lord, the Russian gun.
There, my lord, do not you see?
It’s that way, lord, that fate must run.’

Well may you ask, why did he do it?
Was Nolan not an honourable man?
We will never know the reason.
Ponder that as best you can.

Meanwhile the men sit restless mounts
Which shuffle, snort, dressed by the right.
Tossing heads, their reins held loosely,
Each and all can sense the fight.

What Cardigan (called Lord Haw, Haw)
Thought at the time it’s hard to tell.
But someone heard him murmuring
‘This charge will finish Brudenell.’

Then he wheeled about on Ronald,
Drawing forth an untried blade.
He trotted out to centre front
Of those they called the Light Brigade.

By troop, by squadron, sabres drawn.
Hussar and Lancer, Light Dragoon,
Each regiment Royal duty sworn,
Each man to die and that but soon.

And on whose flanks, there lay high ground,
From watching Russian comes no sound.
While in the valley still and hot
Rings out the order, ‘Walk-march, trot – ‘
—————
‘Bugler, sound the advance’

And as we canter forth the guns begin
To range with ball this Light Brigade, for history shaped.
Poor Nolan lies with rictus grin,
The first one dead, the first life *****.

The thunderous noise, the gathering mist,
Hold in your horse, dress by the right,
Your sabre drill, your strength of wrist,
Will see you through the coming fight.

The bugler’s sounding gallop now.
Through dense, white smoke the canons roar.
Each rider urges on his horse,
Midst raging death demanding more.

The Thirteenth point, their sabres reach.
The Seventeenth, their levelled lances,
Close in you *******, fill that breech,
Adjust your dressing (sidelong glances).

And in the crashing, frenzied fight,
Milling shapes that cut and ******
And loom and rage and loudly cry in fright,
Swiping, slashing as they must.

But some are through.
As from the melee we can hear the shout,
(Mrs. Dubberly sips her tea; admires the view.)
**, Light Brigade, form threes about.

Whimper the wounded crouched in pain.
Screams the horse again, again.
These are the victims, these and the slain.
Pray let the memories all remain.

Lest we forget.

Vietnam 1969:
Dappled sunlight danced
About your greasy, sweating body.
Oh! What fun.
It saved us shooting twice, and just as well.
For when we finally came your eyes were glazed
And staring at the Sun.

As a gathering of Infantry Veterans meet in the Australian capital to commemorate their Battalion’s participation in the Vietnam War the International War Crimes Court is considering its probe into the British Army for atrocities allegedly committed in Afghanistan and an American Seal has been publicly reviled for alleged atrocities.

The hunters, they are gathering in Canberra this year.
They’ll tell each other lots of lies
And steal each other’s beer.
But their stories aren’t for publishing
They’re not for you to hear.

For these, the men who went to war,
Lean, lithe and silent, ghostly then.
Now paunchy, pallid, blear of eye,
Their stories, told of service life
Might make you laugh, more likely cry.

Nowadays, with hindsight’s wisdom told, their tales
Are glossed, embellished thoughts on war,
Reflecting social aspects voiced by those
Who eagerly howl; declaring all and any conflict is a crime.
(Yet had they gone still would they so - do you suppose?)

But when the hunters gather
Then the truth, if ever such there is,
Is broached and P.C. takes a walk.
While drunken geriatrics laugh and roar and feebly thump the table.
I think Society should listen very carefully to their talk.