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“What did you do today, my boy,
up in the clouds so high?”

“I saw a hostile aircraft
and gave a hunting cry.
Then with that ‘Tally ho’ drove down
to blast it from the sky.
And as I pressed the button
I saw the pilot’s face
with fear and sheer astonishment
alternately in place,
before that prowling Messerschmitt
received the lethal blow,
and trailing smoke and fire,
plunged to Kent’s fields below.
‘Twas in that time of triumph
my change of mood began,
reacting like a robot, I had slain
a fellow-man.

That night my comrades feted me,
and joked and drank and sang,
describing my achievement
as a ‘really wizard prang’;
nor dreamt that I, self-branded,
would wear the mark of Cain.”

“You only did your duty, lad,
in wartime there’s no choice
and only one Commandment,
that heeds no inward voice.
So think of London’s dockland,
remember Coventry,
and still the voice of conscience
till Europe’s Nazi-free.”

 

T. C. Hudson

© T. C. Hudson.
This work may not be reproduced without prior permission of the author.

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