CHARLIE McCOLL

 

Executed 1916 to set an example

 

The shells are screaming overhead,
The fields are littered with our dead.
Is this what Christianity is all about,

Is it necessary to kill and rout.
I volunteered to serve my king,
To fight for freedom was our thing.
But seeing far so many dead,

I wonder what Christ would have said.
Were he here now to witness this.
I feel so useless and insecure.
My brain won’t function any more.

My thoughts of God, are just a dream
Of what life really could have been.
I know that I must pay the price
For what’s considered cowardice

But in the years to come no doubt
There will be those who will speak out.
For cowardice is not a sin
Its a situation our peers place us in.

And to quote from a Kipling poem.
Of men like me who yearned to be free.
I could not look on death which being known,
Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

 

Written in anger by Arthur Lane. June 1942.