Such Poem by chris dawson

Chris was lying in a gully by the sea.

Three days and two nights continuous toil

under blasting shrapnel, sniper fire,

an exposed and lonely stretcher bearer.

He wondered where Harold, his brother, could be.

From time to time he would get word.

His company had been given possession of a hill,

so very dangerous to hold,

along with the gift of snipers left and rear.

23 of his 50 platoon comrades had so far perished,

but no one shifted, unless carried down killed or wounded.

It seemed that nothing but divine providence that neither had been hit;

men being hit all around.

The stretcher bearer not afforded protection like the infantry.

Chris was with a fellow carrier and a doctor, sowing up the stomach of a man,

In an open shell hole, when 'they' hit the man holding the needles.

Dead.

He had only been there a week,

and it seemed inconceivable that he, or his sibling,

could stay out of it.

Such was the nightmare of Gallipoli





Chris could not know,

but within weeks oldest brother Barnard would fall.

Charged to his death.

Hours earlier having written

'We all wish the thing was over'

And then it was, for him.

No known grave

Such was the waste in the Battle of Loos




Another month, another telegram.

Frank this time.

2nd Lt Beechley 'shell wound..dangerously ill..

permission to visit canot be granted'.

Followed by 'Deep regret…died of wounds'

Such were vagaries, the pragmatism of war




Another brother, Charles spoke of his terrible shock

at the loss, despite being 'more or less accustomed to death' as he was.

His whole life having condensed in to the last two years,

the previous 20 spent in 'enjoyment and peace' was now dreamlike.

Hoping only that their share of losses now be satisfied,

despite their taking more than their share of the dangers.

Such was hope on the Somme




Charles never wrote again, now in East Africa,

a minister took that liberty, a few lines at the lad's request,

serious wounds preventing him that final act, with little hope of recovery.

He realised this himself they were sure.

'Bearing up so bravely' indeed there was comfort to the mother.

Heavy fighting, many good men going under,

perishing in the dusty distant soil, not the return they had hoped for.

Everything was done to make his end more comfortable.

Such was the grimness of reality




Harold now too on the Somme, leaving Galipoli with a wrecked

physical health from dysentery, mental from the horrors he had endured.

Wounded there, 'very lucky'…'nice round of shrapnel thought the arm..

but did not penetrate the ribs' his mother read.

Patched up and ready again for the front, grim resignation.

Four days leave promised had been withdrawn.

'It can't be done', though leave is his he cannot take it.

Not due to military need, not through misfortune,

but the risk of missing the next draft.

Of having it slung in his face that he was afraid to go back.

There was no one, he thought, that had been though the Hell at Poziers,

or those places on the Somme,

who readily wants to go again.

He didn't, but wouldn't shirk the thing for all that.

Harold too has no known grave

Such were men like him.




Leonard had married hurriedly as conscription loomed for single men.

That did not save him.

From his own sickbed 'Mother I do not feel like doing much'.

A feeble note in childlike spidery pen.

The final lines of Len.

On Christmas day 1917 'Dear Mrs Beechley',

unfortunately far from well when he was then hit by tetanus.

Holy communion followed, and he fought on.

'receiving again with his final breaths'.

Was all the chaplain could summon.

Such was the fact of life




Chris was 'lucky', a Turkish sniper ending his war in 1915.

Severely disabled, returning to the pre-war place of his aspirations,

Australia,

from where he learned of his mother being presented to King George V

Receiving solemn thanks for her sacrifice.

Such is the irony of war.




Eric Beechley, spared the carnage of the trenches,

wrote a promise from his haven as an army dentist.

'You will have one of us some home to you, dear Mother'.

Within months young Sam, just 19, was sent forth,

with his youthful innocence, to face the guns of the Western Front.

He survived.

Such is that game of chance.




Mrs Amy Beechley had already lost her husband in 1912, raising her 14 children alone, and spending so many moments, through to days, to years, hoping, longing and praying, gripped in a stoic suspense of fear.

Such can be the make of women.