I told them the uniform was not the proper size,
And now as arms and shoulders rub and laughter fills the skies.
Like ants we’re squashed into the space that plunges us to sea,
And every eye is straining to behold Gallipoli.
And is that it? The reason we have left the world of home?
Our tear-filled wives and infants in the doorways all alone?
Is this the prize we’re after? Shallow water, rocks and sand,
And giant ragged mountains where the Turks will make their stand?
‘Get down into the shadow’ comes the cry of someone near,
‘Get down BELOW their guns, you’ll be slaughtered standing here',
I move, but very slowly as I cannot comprehend,
How sand will clump when soaked in blood from someone’s shattered friend.
The wind seems bent on finding souls together ‘neath the sun,
And carry off to somewhere far, where time has just begun,
because the Man’s no longer there, just blood and meat and bone,
and countless flies descending in a dark infected drone.
And then my legs are running, tripping, stamping on the dead,
I have to reach that shadowed place that’s not so far ahead.
I hear the stitches splitting on the uniform they gave,
and I don’t want to wear it when they lay me in the grave.
So tell me Mr Churchill as you light your fat cigar,
and think about the Western Front not getting very far,
will you spare even one small thought as you pour out your tea,
for all the piles of young men, stacked across Gallipoli?
You said the Turkish Empire was already set to fall,
and we would help to find a back door round the Germans;
best of all we’d HELP the Western Front, but all I see is blood and death
and soldiers with their bowels hung down and screaming with each breath.
And every bullet finds a man who will be hailed as ‘brave’,
and we’ll march back as ‘heroes’ if we do survive the grave.
The Dardenells will find a place in England’s history,
but YOU WERE’NT THERE TO WADE IN BLOOD OR SCREAM WITH DYSENTRY!
And ships that should have ruled the waves hit mines, and sank,
whilst we gave everything, and then gave more to damned Gallipoli.
© Annette Keeble Martens
March 2015
