ANOTHER POEM FROM THE SAME SOURCE AS THE LAST ONE

[DuncaninFrance]

KEMP’S NORTHERN WEEKLY GAZETTE January 8th 1916

The following contribution is from the pen of a “Tommy” in the fighting line:-

BY THE GULF OF SAROS

Here by the Gulf of Saros I sit in the dim twilight,

‘Mid the graves of fallen comrades who went in the last big fight;

Went to a calmer region, to a better land we guess;

So the wise are always guessing, and the unlearned answering, yes

In the gulley our lights are blinking ‘mid the shadowy forms of men,

‘Neath the watchful eye of a sniper away beyond the glen;

And a wailing cry of anguish goes up from somewhere down below;

As the marksman claims his victims, so our comrades are laid low

So the intermittent fighting goes on from day to day,

Each sunset bringing nearer the peace that’s far away;

So we hear refreshing music of an oft sung melody,

By someone in the trenches where forms are shadowy

I don’t mean the mystic regions away beyond the sky,

I mean the turning grey lines that here beneath me lie;

Where my comrades peep through the loopholes away to where danger lurks,

Concealed by every conceived device of the crafty, cunning Turk

The Turk is a first class fighter, with his back against the wall,

And he isn’t afraid to use his guns, and he isn’t afraid to fall;

Some, we know are brutal, but that’s true of every clan,

But taken all round as a soldier, he is a first class fighting man

Here’s honour then to Johnny Turk, and luck to shrapnel shell,

That does not burst, not one in ten, that is which does not burst well;

But I don’t like his high explosive, and I don’t like his noiseless gun,

And I don’t the way he pounds shells in, when he is out for a mad hour’s fun

It’s good to watch our gunboats come out from Sulva Bay,

The spray sweeping o’er their low decks’ their f’o’sle clearing the way;

Their guns timed and trained exactly, the flash, the scream and the crash;

The uplifted rock and the sandbags, the whirl and resounding smash

We get high explosive, and we know the Turks get it too,

And where high explosive bursts amongst men there’s a scene that’s sad to view;

Describe it? I don’t really care to; it’s quite bad enough to see,

Sickened like a woman, I turn from such scenes, believe me

I turn to a lad at the dyke side with a bullet in his head,

Who struggling hard for breath, “mother, Oh, mother” he said;

Once more I’m bending o’er him, once more he whispers to me,

“Mother where is Mary? I cannot hear or see”

Then I turn to Lalla Baba, where forty-three in one grave,

I am there amongst many crosses made out of common wood;

Roughly made in a hurried way and sometimes stained with blood,

Bur honoured, honoured is every one, honoured each simple cross,

They tell old England’s glory, and alas, they denote our loss

Here in the gloaming, here ‘neath a darkening sky,

Do you wonder that I sit musing while bullets go harmlessly high;

Do you wonder I see a white legion marching up, up the clouds steep,

To a realm where there’s no war confusion, where their eternal watch keep

It’s all in the magic and mystery and irony of life,

It’s all in the glamour and glory and woe of a world in strife;

By our blunders minute and colossal, perhaps we shall see the light,

With which world’s affairs may be corrected, and wrongs made right

So we, with our brave Allies stand definitely firm and fight,

Determined to win and conquer for liberty, freedom and right;

And when it’s assured we’ll turn once more towards the briny foam,

With one wish uppermost in our minds, the wish for home, sweet home

George Shaw WILLIAMS Born HANLEY Stoke on Trent 21st August 1878

Died THEIPVAL RIDGE (The Somme) 26th September 1916

Enlisted into the 2nd Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment 29th January 1897

Served with 2 NS in South Africa (2nd Boer War) Jan 1900 – Sept 1902

Army Reserve Jan 1904 – Jan 1909

Volunteer, 6th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) 25th August 1914

Landed at Sulva Bay, Gallipoli during the night of 6/7th August 1915

Promoted Lance Corporal 13th August 1915

At El- Fernan, Egypt transferred to the Machine Gun Corps 16th March 1916

Landed Marseilles, France with 32nd Company MGC 2nd July 1916

Killed in Action on Thiepval Ridge 26th September 1916

Commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Face 5C & 12c

James Henry WILLIAMS RA, son of George Shaw, KIA Crete 29th May 1941