Home
Again
The faded picture hangs on the wall,
Next to the medals that they gave you to wear,
You look so proud in your guards uniform,
When war was declared you were the first to go,
What did you think when you stood on the train,
When they sent you to France in Nineteen Fourteen,
Did you think you'd make it home again?
And when you fought at Festubert,
Amidst the shells and machine gun fire,
Four hundred comrades lay dead at the end,
Bodies buried in mud or tangled in wire,
What did you think when you stood in the rain,
And the trenches were flooded chest high,
Did you think you'd make it home again?
In September Fifteen when the big push came,
You went over the top with fixed bayonet,
It must have been a living hell,
With the noise, disease and smell of death,
What did you think when the bullets struck home,
Did you think that you might die,
Or did you think you'd make it home again ?
When new got back to you're young wife at home,
You were wounded but still alive,
She got on the train to London town,
To find you and be at your side,
All of the days she had waited for you,
Not knowing if you'd meet again,
You'd been through hell but made it through,
You had made it home again.
Copyright Nick Allmark 2005
About
my grandfather James Allmark who served in the 2nd
Battalion Scots Guards during the First World War.