They firmed up their friendship in training, their mateship was sealed on the Front,
‘Mid deadly cross-fire and septic pariah and the brutal constraints of “the stunt”.
The battle had raged and consumed them, the fighting intense in their zone,
That night to the tents came a warhorse, Ben’s blood spattered “Ajax”, alone.

And Tom to the C.O. petitioned. The captain, he listened and said,
“That sector’s baptised son, and christened, and consigned to the dying and dead.
“And soldier, permission is censured, I can’t spare another young life”,
“Deny me a further slim Scripture, filed under, ‘Letters to Wife’.”

Tom snapped his heels and saluted, “I’m sorry Sir, I’ve just got to go.”
And the captain remembered a mission on a bleak veldt a lifetime ago,
And a certain sad smile claimed the captain as the lantern light bled from the fray.
He wished Tom a speedy recovery. With his blessings, Pip cantered away.

The moon checker flecked on the corpses and mottled the bronzed armaments,
All twisted and still and distorted and smelted in grim monuments.
Soon, faces presented familiar, then changed into faces of friends.
Tom’s heart stopped for ages, the second he found the pale face that was Ben’s.

He felt through Ben’s greatcoat and stiffened then hauled his mate’s weight on Pip’s back,
And the enemy sensed, in that moment, two heroes at work on the track.
Tom entered the tent of the captain and eased the dead body to ground.
A general and staff were assembled and acknowledged the moment profound.

And the captain, he offered condolence and tendered a solemn refrain
On the noble bequeath of the rescue and Tom’s action that ended in vain.
“In vain, Sir?” intoned the young soldier. His statement slit canvas and corps,
And washed out amongst the stark faces and the trenches that led to the war.

“Ben was alive when I found him. His gallant heart stopped on the way,
“And in your note home to his Mum Sir, there’s some things I’d like you to say.
“Tell her, his last thoughts were with her; that Tom Turner will bury her son,
“And tell her his last words to me Sir, were … ‘Mate, I just knew that you’d come’.”

Robert Raftery ©