Trudging slowly through once lush green fields,
Yesterday, crisp golden in their barley yields.
Now turned a brutal, deathly black,
Littered with friends and comrades never going back.

Back to glorious England the land in which they were born,
To loving wife and dearest children by whom they will be sorrowfully mourned.
They lie deceased in these stormy fields of sombre grey,
We ruefully traverse on this fateful day.

“Over the top” was the bellowing cry,
Sending young men to subsequently die.
We charge trembling awash with rampant fear,
Bullets ricocheting around us, causing ringing in our ears.

Those were dark days of hate and dread,
‘Twas not me who wanted the Germans dead.
So now my friends you must understand,
The grave horrors of that woeful land.

The land in which human life came last,
The land with dreadful blood-stained past.
For evermore their heroic tales we shall tell,
In loving memory of those who fell…