Death Drip Fed

Death has long been drip-fed
Through all our “post-war” years
And one by one the dead
Cause some to shed their tears

Yet still there are the pains
We feel beneath the scars
There were few grand campaigns
Just lots of little wars

Was any of the cost
Of every fight and raid
For those who are now lost
Worth sacrifices made?

The book is open still
For more to pay that bill.

Delight

The blood and the torment were there
The painful exquisite delight
They had shed the enemies blood
Yet lived to the end of the fight

A Landing

The craft all lay out from the bay
Filled with men prepared for a fight
They’d stayed there all yesterday
And rode the waves most of the night

Their crews were well used to the swell
And waited for orders to come
Soldiers were feeling unwell
Seasickness had left them all dumb

The craft slewed and reared in the swell
White faces were wet with the spray
Of their thoughts no one could tell
As craft lay off the far shore

When crewmen ate up their ration
Some soldiers had puked on the deck
Faces so grey and ashen
Each had his equipment to check

The diesels had thrummed through the night
As craft lay off the far shore
Throttles were opened with might
And thrums had turned to a roar

The craft slewed and reared in the swell
White faces were wet with the spray
Each in his own secret hell
And tensed for the work of the day

The craft all as one made a turn
Bow waves churned up to white crests
Their wakes made great plumes at the stern
And their hearts beat hard in their chests

The tracers lit up the east sky
And star shells burst over the shore
Yet none of them there asked “why?”
The diesels continued to roar

The craft slewed and reared on the swell
White faces were wet with the spray
Each seemed to be in a spell
As the craft sped in to the bay

The craft careered on at full speed
Adrenaline started its flow
The fear then seemed to recede
We were there to “give a good show”

Crafts full of young men in their prime
Each checking equipment once more
This eased the passage of time
As diesels continued to roar

The craft slewed and reared on the swell
White faces were wet with the spray
Our fate no one could foretell
As we raced on in to the bay

In the great scheme of things of course
There’s nothing of worth on those shores
Radios crackled some Morse
And bow men stood by the bow doors

As mangrove trees loomed into sight
And young hearts beat fast out of fear
Astern dawn’s eerie first light
The sounds of some gunfire seemed near

The craft slowed and rode a slight swell
White faces still wet with the spray
There seemed a flatulent smell
As we neared the shore of the bay

Propellers churned up a grey froth
Through mud of the marshy foreshore
The mud like flames to a moth
Stuck us fast and we moved no more

The bow doors slapped down on the mud
The first men sank in far too deep
Terror then froze in their blood
Stuck there for the reaper to reap

The small craft brought us to this hell
Such places can trap men as prey
Their plan was to charge pell-mell
But this mud here had blocked the way

They strained as they fought with the ooze
A battle with men they could win
This fight with some mud they’d lose
The diesel roars made a loud din

Then tracers etched through the dawn sky
As shells burst beyond the shore line
Minutes then slowly dragged by
In the mud, the muck and the slime

Our craft too were stuck in this hell
And the crews were trapped in the bay
Shellfire still clattered its knell
And quagmires of mud blocked the way

As diesels churned up a grey froth
Men slithered in mud to the shore
They raged an undignified wrath
They wallowed and sweated and swore

The engines then eased to a hum
The boat crew had failed though they’d tried
Though mud we could not overcome
We could well float free with the tide

The craft was then stuck in that hell
And we had to get to the shore
Shellfire still clattered a knell –
Mud beckoned beyond the bow door.

The Shore

The shoreline was muddy and flat
Trees seemed to grow out of the sea
He sniffed at the stench and he spat
This was not where he wanted to be

The strange roots all gnarled and knotted
Arched upward beneath every tree
All hope in his soul had rotted
This was not where he wanted to be

We’d squelched through the muddy foreshore
When we’d landed here from the sea
Hauled boxes and sweated and swore
This was not where he wanted to be

Crabs scurried about us right there
He’d wallowed ungainly by me
His eyes had a strange glassy stare
This was not where he wanted to be

Somewhere he lies buried near there
For too soon his soul was set free
Whilst he’s not the one with the care
This is not where he wanted to be

Retrieving a Body

We found him half under the water
Where the crabs had started to dine
It was the day after the slaughter
The weather was splendid and fine

The state of him gave us a shock
For he was so clammy and cool
We hauled him out onto a rock
And crabs ran back into the pool

Yet no one could raise to a rage
For his skin was waxy and blue
More crabs came out of his rib cage
Where the round had drilled him right through

Yet vengeance was not mine or thine
His killers were already dead
Some lay there by that shore’s tide line
Where more crabs were now being fed

Returning a Body

The shore was to the lee
The engine’s revs were low
Our progress to the sea
Was dignified and slow

He lay there on the boards
An ensign covered him
Flies gathered there in hoards
And he stank something grim

Burial at Sea

There under the ensign he lay
As the prayers and sermon were said
I heard a voice inside me say
“But surely he just can’t be dead”

Yet under the ensign he lay
Sewn in canvas with a large weight
The knowledge I have to this day
Still tells me it was just his fate

As we listened to the last post
The trumpeter played the last note
There off of that tropical coast
A lump seemed to choke in my throat

His mangled remains were well hid
Sewn in canvas with a large weight
Then from under the ensign he slid
Like others we had seen of late

Yet somehow things didn’t seem right
I just wasn’t able to weep
I saw as he sank out of sight
Sharks follow him down to the deep

Able Seaman White (dec’d)

As the stars in the firmament gleam
In the arch of the sky of the night
There comes the repeated sad dream
Of a dead able seaman called White

I sat up with a jerk in the night
Saw a man that I’d seen long before
The ghost of the seaman called White
Who died by a rock pool by the shore

And he called me again by my name
Like he’d done many times here before
The same words he then said again
He had said before going ashore

“I must thank you for what you have done
Because really it does mean a lot”
He’d wanted to walk in the sun
And he just didn’t know he’d be shot

And his star in the firmament gleams
In the velvety darkness of night
For he still exists in my dreams
Does that dead able seaman called White

At long distance there through a gun’s sight
He was seen as he stood by the shore
A bullet was launched on its flight
And he felt a slight jar – nothing more

The sensation was then receding
Though all seemed like it had been before
He wondered who could be bleeding
All that blood by the pool by the shore

Now in life he had drawn the short straw
There was little more of him to tell
Red coloured the pool by the shore
As he lay where he staggered and fell

Now the stars in the firmament gleam
In the inky dark blackness of night
For he’s long sapped my self-esteem
Has that dead able seaman called White

Sun was bright as his day had grown dim
When he lay there in it’s bright light
As darkness closed in around him
And his day had been turned into night

I remember that man here before
How he fell from the shot of a gun
Right there by the pool by the shore
Where he died in the tropical sun

I remember the man of his name
Swapping duties with me just before
A gunner had taken his aim
Where I should have stood by the shore

And his star in the firmament gleams
As his ghost comes to visit at night
And he talks to me in my dreams
That forgotten dead seaman called White

Yes in life he had drawn the short straw
But his story is being retold
Red colours the pool by the shore
In the dreams of a man who’s grown old

He say’s “Thank you for what you have done
And I swear that it does mean a lot.
That I have now got me someone,
Yes – got someone – who has not forgot.”

Now the night’s long and sleepless once more
All the stars in the firmament gleam
Waves lap by the pools by the shore
When not sleeping I don’t have to dream

There’s chaos and confusion
Within a troubled mind
What’s real seems an illusion
But old friends all seem kind

And who can find the reason
Sometimes when salt tears flow
They come in any season
But they’re not put on show

Waiting

Above us branches shattered
By bullets overhead
We lay there mud bespattered
And waited to be dead

As we cowered in the slime
There seemed an end to time

He lay there badly battered
The mud was turning red
And those crabs pitter-pattered
And waited to be fed

There lying in the slime
There was an end to time

Now the scene is always there
Though not a word is said
While older now and elsewhere
It’s still there in my head

Still stuck in all that slime
The mind is trapped in time

Faceless and Dead

Around and around there clattered the sound
Thuds vibrated through the ground
Ripples ran out along the mud
As terror drained the face of blood
Then stagg’ring by there in that place
A living man without a face
He writhed about there by the shore
Then quietly passed out through death’s door
Just another number and rank
And with that my weak faith then sank.

Sorties Away

Carriers turned into the wind
In distant deep wide seas
And now because some fools had sinned
The world is out of ease

And sortie after sortie went
To deal a hammer blow
With a resolve that won’t relent
They’re sent to cause more woe

The carrion of the deep will feed
Upon much mortal flesh
The madness will not yet recede
We’re all caught in its mesh

Carriers turned back on their course
Their sorties are away
But actions done without remorse
May cause yet more dismay

Trudging Through the Mire

As we trudged through a slimy mire
We saw so far away
Flashes of some distant fire
And that would make our day
The mud erupted up in front
Some more spewed up behind
Our language then became quite blunt
God, were those gunners blind?
We hugged the mud now stained with blood
And waited there to die
And some of us were chose by fate
Though we still don’t know why
And some of us still seethe with hate
And some of us still cry
Why had this happened to a friend?
Why did he have to go?
It was a useless pointless end
It was Fate’s fickle blow
Most trudged on then from out the mire
For most had got away
And some still hear that “friendly fire”[5]
In flash-backs to this day.

Leading from the Front[6]

A leader was found for the fray
In barracks awaiting his ship
But after not many a day
He’d come to the end of his trip

He’d gathered together those men
Available in that far place
But he was to leave us all when
The life had gone out from his face

We never knew much about him
We don’t know his folk or a friend
When he died what really seemed grim
We could tell no one of his end

We knew that he was one of us
We laid him to rest in the ground
This may be the time now to fuss
For we need his folks to be found

He Still Sees The Glint Of Sunlight

Those two men were clear on the height
I noted their slow stooping run
Through the sun’s glint on the fore sight
Quite calmly I aimed the bren gun

I felt the recoil in my shoulder
Heard metal sounds of the spent rounds
Chill gripped my soul and grew colder
My conscience screamed like baying hounds

The men jerked up static and stiff
Each grunted a guttural sound
There came an end to this mischief
As folding they slumped to the ground

I still see the glint of sunlight
There on the fore sight of the gun
But an evil can’t be put right
“Oh My God – Just what have I done!”

Old Soldier’s Conscience

Young soldier jerked from out of sleep
A hollow thunder loud and deep
Told of the action due to start
He heard the thumping of his heart

Not a quiver in his hand
Gun was shifted on its stand

With soldiers it may be their lot
To aim a careful good clean shot
Men fall like puppets with strings cut
When shot in chest or head or gut

Deeds like that when they are through
Rot forever within you

With a bayonet when he’d slashed
Across a throat so deeply gashed
Frothy blood gushed and bubbled
Was easy then but now he’s troubled

Now there’s quivers in his hand
From the memories he can’t stand

All the talk of honour in deeds
Sanctioned by religions’ creeds
Cover up for a long time
What conscience tells us is a crime

Yet the sweating of his brow
Says conscience is his ruler now

Old man jerks from out of slumber
Conscience raging awful thunder
From wars of long forgotten time
Where killing was not then a crime

But the quiver in his jaws
Shows he’d broken Nature’s laws

The Meaning of “Phew”

It seemed to pass me by
It passed you by too
I heard both you and I
Both quietly whisper “Phew!”

We’d lived beneath a shade
With a dismal view
Now sun may light the glade
Again we both said “Phew”

Anticipation’s there
Both of gloom or light
There with a mellow aire
Or with a cloying fright

Omens of foreboding
Or sighs of relief
Stress may start corroding
With false or true belief

Change may well be strange
It might make you blue
When fate’s not found its range
It’s then we both say “PHEW!”

PTSD[7]

And late at night with dread
He lay down in his bed
But deep within his mind
There was no rest to find

For there in his deep sleep
A dreadful date he’ll keep
With phantoms of the mind
And they are most unkind

Repeating on and on
Each past or dreamed of wrong
Survivors can like sheep
Be dragged down in this deep

To depths of all despair
Choked like they have no air
Writhe ‘n writhe in slumber
Goes on without number

So on and on each night
They face repeated fright
Of ghostly secret dread
Of what’s there in there head

No rest can they now find
When troubled in their mind
It’s known to me and thee
It’s called PTSD

And years after a war
It kills so many more
So torn by all the grief
Death’s sought out for relief

It quietens all the dread
There, in a troubled head
And peace is finally found
When low’r’d in the ground

In the future this scene might be called friendly fire
In the past it was just a damned mess

The reports that were filed had been writ by a liar
So the truth’s to be anyone’s guess

Now the children’s bodies that went down the river
And fed the creatures in the swamp

Leave memories clear that make an old soldier shiver
As he stands at the cenotaph – amid all the pomp

Peace, peace, he does not sleep, he’s dead
Released from all the horrors in his head
No more in sleep will gunfire rattle him
Nor faces of the dead unsettle him
He dreams no more so must now be content
For deep and dreamless sleep is heav’n sent
Its darkness is the sweetest kindest balm
And in it troubled souls are free of harm

Peace, peace, he does not sleep, he’s dead
Released from all the terror and the dread
The dead will visit him at night no more
No sadness from a long forgotten war
The dreams have stopped that shook him in his bed
And tore around like thunder in his head
The ghosts will have to find another haunt
And find some other poor sad soul to taunt

Peace, peace, he does not sleep, he’s dead.

The pilot released his bomb load
Some young men were happy below
They joked as they sat by the road
It was quite a quick way to go

One man only journeyed half way
His gut was spilled out in his lap
He sat for the rest of that day
Slow dying can really be crap

The pilot had gins in the mess
His sortie it’s said was “well done”
That soldier had sins to confess
Then ended has pain with a gun

Dancing

Riding through the coral reef
As tracers light the sky
Planting out a minefield
So that a foe can die

This is what we trained for
and this is what we do
So won’t you come and dance with Death
He wants to dance with You

With blood upon our boots
We’re running through the mud
and hiding in the tree roots
Then spilling yet more blood

From Klingklang in Kalamantan
Kuching and Tauau too
Death wants to dance with everyman
and wants to Dance with You

Bodies heaved into a pit
Or dumped far out to sea
Ah was there ever sense to it
Was it what’s meant to be?

Yet this was what we trained for
And this is what we do
So won’t You come and dance with Death
He wants to dance with You

Their flesh has rotted now
The bones and sinews too
There never was a sacred cow
In what we trained to do

We know until our last breath
That this was what we did
So now it’s time to dance with Death
And he knows where I’m hid

If…

If you can tell big porkies and keep a straight face
If you can be two faced and seem to have good grace
If you can wangle a big house and not get caught
If you can seem to be quite fair when you’ve been bought
If you can be at ease amid much torrid sleaze
And always find some way to do just as you please
And as you do it see all blame is never yours
And as you leave your friends and brothers with your chores
And as you take the glory that belongs to them
You will by then arrive at what you have become
You will by then be a – politician – my son

Aftermath of Action

Sweet sickly smelled the killing scene
Where so much rich red blood congealed
The scene seemed intimate, serene
As if some sacred scroll was sealed
Until all of their blood had chilled
He stood in shock and shook with grief
As violently as they’d been killed
This aftermath brought no relief
There was there now a strange bond sealed
Between soldier and his victim
And his stained soul would hold concealed
How killing them had altered him
For really he could not see why
All these young men just had to die

Recoil’s Recollections

The recoil’s still felt in the shoulder
Of an old man who once aimed a gun
A picture still stands on the mantle
Of a young man who’s someone’s dead son
One of them lived to grow older
Now the other’s eternally young

“Tidying Up” a Battlefield[9]

Now the memory lingers
It’s still with him today
Rings removed from fingers
And storing them away

Cutting through the laces
And tearing off the boot
Not looking in their faces
Just looking for some loot

Weather’s fine an’ sunny
Corpses are searched through
Looking for their money
It’s bad but it’s not new

The booty from the dead
The best he had put by
What more can now be said
He’d sooner thieve than die

Cain now slew his brother Abel
It seemed quite right to do
All of this may be a fable
But the moral rings quite true

Can of Beer

The soul of the man who came on our boat
Seemed to be torn with a terrible grief
And he sobbed and sobbed deep down in his throat
As our boat rode out through a gap in the reef
We’d not drunk that beer that tasted quite grim
A box of the cans lay near to the side
As a gesture I just gave one can to him
He drank and his sobs seemed to subside
The beer that to us was the worst of the stock
To him was some sort of kindness maybe
That may have helped him through his state of shock
Though never did he once look up at me
What we did not want may have been a balm
A great storm makes gales seem more like a calm

Late Afternoon

Late afternoon now fades
The evening’s coming in
Now dim we see some shades
And so quite soon we’re gone

In morning was a storm
Noontime had seen a change
All seemed to have a form
But now it’s all so strange

In early hours we played
But playtime was to end
Remember how you prayed
Each time you lost a friend

Late afternoon is warm
This twilight holds allure
Long gone now is that storm
So rest now feel secure