Letter to an Unknown Soldier

[PhilB]

http://www.brighton.ac.uk/news/2014/140318unknown_soldier.php

The statue is said to be a memorial to employees killed in the war, so I assume the requested letter is to a soldier who was killed.

I`m wondering how our responses have changed since Sassoon`s To Any Dead Officer

WELL, how are things in Heaven? I wish youd say,

Because Id like to know that youre all right.

Tell me, have you found everlasting day,

Or been sucked in by everlasting night?

For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; 5

I hear you make some cheery old remark

I can rebuild you in my brain,

Though youve gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud

Of nothing more than having good years to spend; 10

Longed to get home and join the careless crowd

Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.

Thats all washed out now. Youre beyond the wire:

No earthly chance can send you crawling back;

Youve finished with machine-gun fire 15

Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought youd get done in,

Because you were so desperate keen to live:

You were all out to try and save your skin,

Well knowing how much the world had got to give. 20

You joked at shells and talked the usual shop,

Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:

With Jesus Christ! when will it stop?

Three years ... Its hell unless we break their line.

So when they told me youd been left for dead 25

I wouldnt believe them, feeling it must be true.

Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said

Wounded and missing(Thats the thing to do

When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,

With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, 30

Moaning for water till they know

Its night, and then its not worth while to wake!)

. . . .

Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God,

And tell Him that our Politicians swear

They wont give in till Prussian Rules been trod 35

Under the Heel of England ... Are you there?...

Yes ... and the War wont end for at least two years;

But weve got stacks of men ... Im blind with tears,

Staring into the dark. Cheero!

I wish theyd killed you in a decent show. 40