Jonathan Causebrook
I enlisted in the army At the age of eighteen At least that what I told them And they never questioned me I was keen to do my duty Although it wasn’t yet my time But the war was taking plenty With men in short supply For a soldiers uniform I swapped my shirt and coat And headed out to Europe On foot, by train, by boat There I met a chap The same age as me He’d lied to join the army Just as he had turned sixteen And we made great mates together We often larked about Two kids in an adult war We helped each other out Both had little schooling Both we’d worked on farms And here we were strange shores Like bothers in arms And when the order came To the front we were bound We made a promised to each other That our families would be found If either didn’t make it Or got lost amongst the crowd We’d tell them he was brave And that they should be proud And give ‘em back our things Well, little that we had And say he was fighting for your freedom Try not to be too sad. And as we waited in the trenches For our call Shots rang out above us And bombs began to fall And our boots sank in the mud As the rain came pouring in And a bitter foreign winter Biting at our skin And men kept going over Maintaining the attack Many’s final skirmish Never to come back My mate was put on watch Up a ladder he was stood When a German sniper got him And got him pretty good Took a bullet to the shoulder And another in the head As he fell down from the ladder I knew my mate was dead As they moved him out the way I never saw his face And I climbed upon that ladder To take his place And there I stood With my gun armed ready To shoot a German soldier Perhaps as young as me Shooting at each other Over no mans land Fighting in a war We didn’t understand But I had to take my orders And face the enemy Or face charges of desertion The certain end of me And that’s where I died Where the bloody rivers flow Just one unknown solider That everybody knows I laid down my short life For King and country But I was just a boy Would you please remember me Jonathan Causebrook - September 2016 (c) Home