A Foreign Wood
The empire called for more men, and they came.
Shipped from sub-continent
to western front,
Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, East Africa,
largest volunteer army in the world.
They weren’t ready for the cold;
couldn’t understand new officers
when theirs were slain.
Some wounded, shipped to England,
died and were buried
in a corner of a foreign wood
with Muslim honours, near a mosque,
among the sentry birch and pines.
Undisturbed for decades, then came vandals.
The soldiers were exhumed;
monument, arches, minarets,
domed gateway remain.
Remember them, and their memorial,
when leaves cling on in November wind,
magpies and crows call through the trees.
It’s time to dig again the mossy turf
and sandy soil; to bury war,
unearth peace.
M.C. Newberry
Tue 14th Jul 2015 23:15
It is always worth being reminded of lesser known
victims of war and sacrifice and this does a good job in
this particular era.
I pass the Brookwood cemetery when taking the train on
visits to my brother in Surrey. Each time I pass its
extraordinary wooded and overgrown vastness I think of
it as the last resting place of the "Bravest of the Brave":
Wing Comdr. Frederick Yeo-Thomas GC, Croix de Guerre -
the famous "White Rabbit" of the SOE who suffered
unimaginable tortures at the hands of the Nazis after
being betrayed in Paris. The book bearing his SOE code
name should be essential reading for anyone who seeks
to understand the nature of war and the suffering
caused to man by man.