He hated war, did my Dad

It's Remembrance Sunday here in the UK. Maggie Redding has shared this poem for the occasion.

War

The stories that my father told about the war

to end all wars, were tales of mud and wet and cold,

of fags, of bully beef, the roar of guns and bursting shells.

He spoke of gas, of mates, some killed or wounded

maimed.  Places listed, Arras, Ypres and Vimy Ridge.

There was a soldier boy, a German prisoner.

He fetched water for the British men in Flanders.

My father noticed that he had a limp. He moved

as though in pain.  ‘What’s up, then, mate?’

a homely phrase, so ordinary.  No hostile words,

no hate, no dread, only concern, humanity.

The fear that froze the prisoner’s face betrayed

the stories he’d been fed, that Brits they were a cruel,

 wicked race, they’d kill sick prisoners, they’d said.

The leg was wounded, bad and black. ‘Gangrene,’ Dad told us.

He had taken the lad for care.  Dad didn’t know if he went back

to Germany and lived on there.

He hated war, did my Dad.  Twenty years after that

He heard declared a new World War.

‘It makes you wonder,’ he would say.

‘Was it worth it?  What’s it for?’

Maggie Redding