Passchendaele

 












 

Because an Archduke was killed

they were called on to serve their country.

Frank joined first – the infantry

then brother Tom, an engineer.
They watched their comrades pass by

blown to atoms, drowned in mud

in a colossal sacrifice of blood

to stuttering machine gun and artillery.

Artisans, they were not born to fight.

The Lichfield sons were ordinary.

The lies of crowds took their history.

Hague’s plan for the salient blew them out.

Frank died first, then sapper Tom

from wounds sustained at Ypres and Pilckem.

Note: two relatives, on my father’s side, Frank and Tom Hatchett, brothers from Lichfield in Staffordshire served in the First World War. Frank was a private in the 16^th battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), Tom was a sapper in the Royal Engineers. They both died during the Third Battle of Ypres, in 1917. Frank on the 20^th of September and Tom on the 10^th of October

PS. As I was writing this sonnet I looked out of the window and saw this rather remarkable cloud formation, which I took a photograph of