That’s a picture no artist can paint
Picture a fairy August night
When our lads from the town went out to fight
Onward they went to foreign shore
The bid goodbye – perhaps for evermore
Many a poor mother has broken her heart
With one or two sons she has had to part
We’ll fight to the finish now we have begun
That’s a picture no artist can paint.

Picture the lads in the Dardenelles
Fighting their way through shots and shells
Onward they went, they knew no fear
Defying the enemy that was so near
Officers, Sergeants and privates as well
Side by side they fought and fell
There were eyes there to witness
But no one can tell
That’s a picture no artist can paint

Picture the blood stained battlefields
They are using young women as human shields
Driving them on in front you see
To hide them from the enemy
“Stop, do not fire” was the officer’s cry
No innocent one by our hands shall die
That’s the reason why our lads were defeated that day
That’s a picture no artist can paint

“One of the boys.”

When I was a child, my dad the above poem in his wallet and he often read it to me,
it was from the 1914-18 War, I used to cry when he read it.
I’ve always cherished it and wondered who the young boy was that wrote it.

Elsie Chamberlain