Decaying corpses, unique stench
With cordite blowing, past our trench
I no longer hear the warning rattle
But smell and taste impending battle

In the distance sounds a Lewis Gun
Maybe aimed at some unlucky Hun
So far in front of our barbed wire
Amongst the brown serrated mire

The Corporal said this place was ‘Wipers’
Mud and blood and German Snipers
The Sergeant Major called it Ypres
The place where only dead men sleep

My rifle’s clean and my feet are rotten
My bayonet’s sharp and my Wife's forgotten
A para-flare lights up all our sorrow
For us will there be a tomorrow

Will I see again green English grass
Or taste a beer, or see ‘our Lass’
Hear singing birds and cats that howl
A Skylark, Curlew and dogs that growl

Play some cricket, leather on willow
Nice clean bed with a feather pillow
I pray that I will get a chance
To leave this hell of Northern France

The Corporal said this place was ‘Wipers’
Mud and blood and German Snipers
The Sergeant Major called it Ypres
The place where only dead men sleep

(c) Daniel Dwyran

Note: Ypres is a town in Belgium. There were many young men who volunteered and were called up to fight in the Great War to which a great number that served had very limited formal education. Most of them knew they were going to France, or indeed Northern France and as such their topographic awareness was limited between their 'billets' and the trenches.

"Lest we forget"