I squat and shiver here in a trench just yards from No-Man’s Land

In place of my brother

Who refused to fight for King

And country or for the comradeship.

He would have been proud to wear a white feather

But I got the better of his conscious and made him

Let me take his place, even though I was too young to fight.

Now I see No-Man’s Land and

Its squalor, filth and sound of death that fills my ears

As people die for a blade of grass no longer there,