Mexborough times February 6th
Conisbrough Gunner versifies
Bombardier Wilkinson, a Conisbrough man on active service with 12 Brigade Royal Field Artillery, who eulogises his comrades in verse, written in an interval between some fierce fighting.
Whatever the shortcomings of the poetry, the spirit behind it is British
It was the 23rd of Oct
When we the Huns so badly shocked
our shells lit up the sky that night
As though they were electric light
Our foemen were in masses great
but suffered, still, an evil fate
we fired our guns with all our might
and draw them back a ghastly sight
One section of our guns advanced
With muzzles on the enemy glanced
we stuck to then as Britons will
Our shrapnel was a bitter pill
but they alas were 8 to one
their weight was bound to tell upon
our forces, which last fell back
but state to have another smack
We were in action near a wood
a station which was far from good
when we were sighted by the Huns
who dropped “Jack Johnson’s” on our guns
Behind our guns, close by a wood.
Our men shed free their British blood
and we, for every life that day
demanded of our foes full pay.
We stole back to the guns that night
when clouds had banished all the light;
as silently as Indian steals
rescued the guns and left the wheels.
and laid out comrades there to rest
of our six guns win being bereft
No! We still had two good ones left
And when this war is at an end
Strangest stories we shall tell you, friend
these verses give, if nothing more,
a hint of what the 12th stands for a