The feather and the drum

https://soundcloud.com/william-anthony-hatchett/the-feather-and-the-drum


With(Am) army boots upon (D) their feet
They (Em) left their home in Tamworth Street
(Am) Frank joined first, the (D) infantry
(G) Although his trade was carpentry

(B7) Bullies and the lies of crowds
(Em) Used the feather and the drum
To (Am) take their lives and (D) blow them out
(G) But we will remember them

V2
He had a daughter and a wife
He bid farewell to his old life
An empty place now he was gone
It was the turn of brother Tom

C
Bullies and the lies of crowds
Used the feather and the drum
To take their lives and blow them out
But we will remember them
 
V3
With gun and mortar, plank and bomb
They served their country Frank and Tom
It was a plan that could not fail
A final push for Passchendaele


C
They were not born for smoke and mud
For shrapnel or for fields of blood
A butchers’ s war extinguished them
They died at Ypres and Pilckem
 
C
Bullies and the lies of crowds
Used the feather and the drum
To take their lives and blow them out
But we will remember them



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