Comrades In Arms Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

Parents called us the jolly boys
Friends, we had sung songs of childhood
Played in woods, and through cornfields.
We were country boys, lads of promise
Little Jimmy, Fred, Alfred and me.

We left school to work on farms
Had girlfriends, planned wives and babies
Then came country's call to arms
Full of pride we answered
Four mates together for king and country.

Out in France and to the Somme
Marching heads high to the front
Thinking ourselves invincible
Trenches ankle deep in mud
Infested with rats and lice.

Orders from the general
Brigade to go over the top
Terrified with bayonets fixed
We waited for the officer's whistle
Shook hands and said goodbye.

Whistles blew up and down the line
We clambered up ladders into hell
Heard chattering German machine guns
Screams of wounded
As comrades fell like mowed hay.

Last post bugle call shivers the soul
And in neat rows the dead lie
Marked by thousands of white crosses
Brothers in arms of the Friends Brigade
Among them, Little Jimmy, Fred, Alfred and me.