End of a RatA Poem by David Lewis PagetHe
walked the length of the village street With
a board - ‘The End is Nigh!’ In
a dirty army overcoat, He
looked like a nice old guy, But
kids would jeer as he drank his beer From
a bottle outside the pub, In
winter, fend off the snowballs That
they threw - aye, there’s the rub! For
he had served with the Desert Rats When
the Aussie’s held Tobruk, Had
gone out under a blazing sun Where
an egg on the sand would cook, He’d
taken three light German tanks With
his mates from the Aussie bush, On
a night patrol where they had to crawl Then
fight like the Sydney Push. After
the war, he’d met a girl In
Alexandria, One
of the W.A.A.C.’s that served out there, Her
name was Angela, He
followed her back to England where She
turned her badges in, And
married the girl in Leicestershire, But
never went home again. They
settled down in a village there Though
he yearned for sand and sun, She
said she’d never leave England while Her
life had time to run, He
found some work on a local farm Though
he often became depressed, And
thought of the beach at Bondi and The
wheat fields of the west. They
lived and loved for forty years Though
he felt quite beaten down, The
locals never accepted him As
a native of the town, His
wife took sick to her bed one day And
said, ‘the time has come, You’d
better go back to Australia now That
my life is nearly done.’ She
died as the sun was coming up On
the bleak, flat Leicester plain, He
buried her there in a cemetery With
an Anglo-Saxon name, He
thought to leave but her spirit stirred And
he couldn’t leave her grave, But
went to the age-old Norman church, Knelt
in the nave, and prayed. For
years he studied the Bible there Considering
all he’d done, The
bones of the soldiers left out there In
the terrible Libyan sun, The
emptiness of his life took hold And
he walked with a weary sigh, Placing
a board around his neck That
said - ‘The End is Nigh!’ He
walked with his head bowed down and low And
forgot to turn around, They
found him frozen, covered in snow Just
a mile outside the town, A
photograph of his wife was tucked In
the band of his old slouch hat, And
on his lapel, a medal cast In
the shape of a Desert Rat! David
Lewis Paget © 2012 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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Added on December 16, 2012Last Updated on December 16, 2012 Tags: Tobruk, Alexandria, desert, England Author
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