MIke Harding, the singer & poet wrote:
That First Step
Just picture it, the rising sun
Kisses the good, sweet earth and tips
Your bayonet. Your lips
Still burning from the double tot of rum
Hold a shaky woodbine, you look down the line –
White faces stare out, unseeing, across the wire;
The whistle blows to start the match,
You curse the liars and generals not the Hun
And clutch the pygmy’s straw that is your gun.
But that first step – just how the ****
Did they all do it? Off the duck
Boards; shaking legs, stumble up the steps,
A bumbled scramble over the parapets.
And then the “walk don’t run”
Into the chattering, hammering, yammering,
Skull-cleaving, wailing wall of gas and shells and lead;
They marched into the Kingdom of the Dead.
Lads from the shires and towns
Lads from the factories and downs
Lads from the Dales and the harbours;
Dancers and sons and lovers,
Husbands and fathers and brothers,
Half a million palls and mates,
Half a million souls in khaki, “For a lark”
Went strolling into Hell’s Amusement Park.
And the simple brutal scythe then garnered them
As neat and accurate as any lathe or loom
Or threshing machine – rattling out
The metal howls of battle, industrial style.
And all for what? For lies
As all the wars are for;
For lies and money
And the secret doctrines of the rich.
And the names in brass and stone
Will tell you nothing, only say
That they marched away,
And that they didn’t come home.
And though there was for them great change
That day as they were turned to meat,
And telegrams would come down quiet country lanes
And busy, smoky, narrow city streets –
The tills still rang, the birds sang sweet,
Somewhere a ploughman turned his team
With singing brass and heavy, clay-shod feet
And didn’t hear his brother’s scream.
Still city men were dining at the Ritz
And still the trading figures clicked
In all the great exchanges of the world –
That morning as the battle and the day unfurled.
But that first step – just how the ****
Did they and all their pals walk out into the shining day,
Knowing agony and endless night was just one chuck
Of the dice, one card, one kiss of Lady Luck away?
