'Time Out' by Harry Riley Poem by David Page- aka Harry Riley

'Time Out'
There was a rustling in the bushes
They were creeping through the trees
They were spreading through the jungle
Fifty, a hundred, maybe more...

We were far too few to fight them
Our platoon was on the run
We had lost our finest soldiers
And we knew our war was done

The we heard them getting closer
And their voices rose up high
They were cutting down the vines
Screeching birds had filled the sky

We had lost the will to live
But we didn't want to die
Our dead were all around us
And our instinct was to fly

Then our sergeant took his cue
He wasted not a second
Roughly handling our departed
Swiftly showing what to do

I heard my dead pal calling
'Come and join us, come and see
Just look what we've discovered
You'll enjoy it just like me! '

But we did the sergeant's bidding
What little choice we had
Then the hordes were all around us
Yelling, kicking us quite bad!

They had captured all our weapons
They had claimed the victim's blood
Then they raced to find survivors
Leaving bodies in the mud

Less than thirty minutes later
In our bullet-riddled clothes
We were rising just like zombies
And were shivering with the cold

We had bloodied up our torsos
And had fooled a clever foe
Into thinking we were finished
As he'd struck his fatal blow!

Our sergeant was the hero
As his medal was to show
But he never lived to see it
For we had buried him below

The enemy had shot him
As he jumped and tried to run
He had bought our precious freedom
But had perished by the gun

This was duty in the jungle
In the year of' forty two'
We knew what war was all about
When the sergeant called 'Time Out'
***