Dead Man's Penny Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Badge, boots, knife, straps, khaki hose
Ammo pouches. Helve head cover
Water bottle. Bayonet frog
Small pack, Large pack. Kilt wrap over

Entrenching tool head, bayonet, scabbard
Dressings, iodine ampoule
Flashes, greatcoat, groundsheet, helmet
Dubbin, blacking, boots to bull

Hussif, ID disc and jacket
Gordon Highland tartan kilt
Kit bag, mess tin, fork and spoon
Leather jerkin, towel, waist belt
Pay book, PH gas hood, bag
Puttees, toothbrush, vermin powder
Razor (cut-throat) Shaving brush
Button stick and Tommy cooker

Flannel, soap, comb, brush, foot powder
Brass oil, polish, rag to rub
Rifle, titles, tam o shanter
Wash roll, shirt, enamel mug

Mud or frost weighed down the kilt
Cut the Tommy’s freezing skin
Lice would breed in tartan seams
Pleats on barbed wire trapping him

With his short Lee Enfield Rifle
Quick to load and quick to fire
Corned beef, army biscuits, tea
What more could a man desire?

Rats and mustard gas and shrapnel
Horses rotting in the trench
Flooded latrines, eyeless comrades
Limbs and mud and rain and stench

Foot rot, shell shock, impetigo
Frost and fear, the soldier’s bed
One way out, to win a discharge
Wounded, missing, mad or dead

For the families left behind them
Widows, orphans, the unborn
Comes the prize, the Dead Man’s Penny
For the troops cut down like corn