Re-visiting Jack

What did you die for, Jack? I ask
as I sit myself at your grave-side
to ease my aches and pains

You’re a long way from home here
And as far as I know
I’m the first one to come

The sun is hot
so I take off my coat
to air myself in the cooling breeze

It’s a summer morning
in northern France
like the ones you would have seen

There’s a special peace among the graves
The peace we owe to the fallen
A debt we can never repay

It's quiet but for the rustle of leaves
and the soft tick of a motorbike
cooling in the lane

I stare at the rows of mute stones
Neatly drawn by Lutyens
to hide forever the horror and the chaos of war

I try to sense the nerves and the strain
that you knew
Try to imagine the hell and the suffering you bore

Tell me how it was up in the trenches, Jack
Tripping over barbed-wire
Bodies at your feet

Exposed out in no-man’s-land
Holding your guts down
and feeling your heart beat

You must have been all in
Re-brigaded again and again
from one depleted unit to the next

All the links to community lost
Looking out for relatives
and mates you’d known
among the sorry survivors
of their lot

The West Yorks.
The East Lancs.
The King’s Own

No wonder we couldn't find you

I can picture you
in the photo I have
from the book my uncle Owen wrote
Sitting between your pals
Relaxed and self-assured
in an Army overcoat

But you were always invisible
You and Tommy on my Nana’s side
Never really mentioned
Now I think I understand why

My granddad and his brothers all survived

All ten, carefully posed in regimental dress
Wide-eyed for photos in the newspaper
The whole family honoured
by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress

But there’s something else

Something different about you, Jack
Collar up
Cocky half-smile
and a steady look straight through the lens
Like you could see us

I feel as though I know you
The features on your face
and something more
Perhaps you had my Nana’s grace

I read the last letter
that you wrote home to your mother
and it almost broke my heart:

The little fight with Jerry
that you came through alright
But not so the kids you chummed with
Now all dead or wounded

I read with sorrow
your thoughts on being nineteen
a week tomorrow
And your concern for the health
of everyone but yourself

That’s my Nan alright

The message fits
the person in the photograph

Family history says
you never made it to your birthday
But the record shows
you lasted weeks beyond 7th May

Just months before the Armistice
But that's a long time on the Western Front

Jimmy and Biddy (my mam’s named after her)
already mourning Catherine and Owen
now lost their youngest son
And poor Tommy, badly wounded
didn’t linger long

You were robbed of your life
My Nan of her brother
Only sickly uncle Tommy
was mentioned by my mother

We probably wouldn’t have met, Jack
even if you’d lived
Our eras never crossed
But I might have heard the stories handed down

Oh, I wish I’d known to ask
What I’d pay
to sit down
for a chat with my Nana today

What did you die for, Jack?
What cause was furthered
by cutting you down in the mud?

How was the world improved
by the slaughter of those that lie with you
and in every tasteful burial ground
that hides the guts and the blood?

Shame we didn’t show the same respect for the living

I'm glad that I came to see you, Jack
It’s good that we’ve had our chat

We all seem to have forgotten you
and we can’t be having that

I’ll take my own photograph
for the family at home to see
No more will you rest
Somewhere in France
but right here by this shady tree

It’s hard to leave
I’d love to stay
I’m having to drag myself away
But I’m sure we’ll know one another now
when we all meet up one day

So I write some words in the visitors’ book
and offer some more to the sky
Throw a leg over the motorbike
and bid you all a sad goodbye

I ride away through the old Front Line
rubbed out by the grass and trees
that you never thought would grow again
when gas hung in the breeze

Jack Loftus (7 May 1899 – 16 June 1918)