“YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!”
We’re going to war boys, we’re going to war,
Lord Kitchener asked us so we formed a corps.
Joe and Jack from the factory, Ted and Jim from the farm,
the recruiting sergeant assures us that there’s little chance of harm.
We’re part of the great pals army and we’ve fallen for his charm
as we march away to war.
We’re in the war boys, we’re in the war,
we think we were lied to - but we’re not too sure.
Bullets are flying everywhere, some of them get quite near,
our cocky, jaunty demeanour is now riddled through with fear.
Our pals are dying everywhere and there’s no time to shed a tear
as we fight this blooming war.
We’re sick of the war boys, we’re sick of the war,
we’ve had enough of it, can’t take any more.
I’ve seen friends explode in pieces, I’ve seen bone and guts and blood,
and everywhere we march there’s this terrible stinking mud
and when a shell flies by you you’re just praying it’s a dud.
We’re so sick of this war.
I’m home from the war boys, I’m home from the war,
just me on my own, boys, from a hundred and four.
They died like cattle in the field, cut down by bayonet and shell,
sucked into the earth like they were journeying to hell.
All my friends died horribly, only I was left to tell
of the boys who went to war.
I’m still in the war boys, I’m still in the war,
I talk to friends who were with me before.
I see their muddy faces, I hear their mournful boasts,
buried under Flanders fields so they can’t desert their posts.
I’m no longer with the living I’m just drifting with the ghosts
of the boys who went to war.
© Ian Whiteley
