Home from War at last

Home from War ( The Twenty Two)

“I walked most of the way home, there was a train from Portsmouth up to Cardiff but that was it. I started walking up past the Castle, Cardiff Castle, it starting pissing down, at least no one will see the tears running down my face. I cried all the way up to Whitchurch Rd, Smithy's Dad was buying wheat he was going to give us a lift back to Swansea”

We were twenty two in training

Spikey left we were twenty one

Left with twenty coz of Munkies and Crispi's complaining

So us nineteen had a job to be done

Only a few of us were over eighteen

There were seventeen days left of hell

A sniper got Cappy, that he hadn’t seen

So the sixteen that were left had done well

For fifteen minutes we were shit on

By the fourteenth German squadron in the sky

We were thirteen when Charlie caught shrapnel

Twelve when Paul dared to ask why?

At eleven we remembered the stories

There were ten when Wilko stepped on a mine

These bastards were killing my buddies

Shit! Now Jim, now we are nine.

We stand with our guns at the border

We will keep all the huns from our gate

No we’ve been hit by a mortar

Joe’s dead, now we are eight

At seven o’clock it goes quiet

Are we trapped, are we stuck in this fix?

Louis just done a runner

Now us poor sods are just six.

There are five more men in my party

There are 500 huns at the door

Again they now start shooting

Poor bastard, now we are four

Where is the shithead that is shooting?

Chrissy screams, “he’s there, he's up in that tree!”

But Chrissy shouldn’t have stood looking

He got Chrissy, we are now left with just us three.

How can men be so terrifying?

There’s more humanity locked up in a zoo

They missed me but got my mate Henny

Bollocks they've all gone it's terryfying no there is only us two.

Then there’s a whistle, then silence, we wait too scared to ask why?

Someone shouts “The war 's bloody over“

Left standing is me and John Lewis

Together we stand tall as just one.

“Just two of us made it home, and the bastard wigs couldn’t even arrange for me to get home to Swansea The rain as I walk towards the bus stop in Whitchurch outside the Old Plough, or whats left of it, washes down my face and slowly reveals the broken man beneath the mud, blood and sadness. Smithy's Dad is picking us up after a pint in whatever pub is still standing, then back to Swansea, back home. Is he even gonna get to bleeding Whitchurch.

Going to war we were excited young men who have seen what should never be seen, done what should never have been done and felt, ….felt things no human being should feel. From a young man in just three years I became an old, broken man.

So all I ask as I walk and cry, walk and think, walk and remember is this,

Mr. Politician, Mr. Holy Man or Mrs. Ruler, remember the twenty-one lost, think of the lives you have thrown away, and please, please come to my house for tea and let me explain to you who I am and what your greed has created.

I am one of the Twenty-Two

I am home from War”