‘The soldier is F. Come (NZ), to be killed soon after on the crest of Chunuk Bayir.’

Churchill sat in a smoky chair
and watched the London rain:
We’ll chase the Turks to Hell, he said,
and chase them back again.

The Beautiful Battalions sailed
under a seething sky:
they landed at Gallipoli
to do his work and die.

We’ll be in Consty-nobble soon
and drinking pink champagne,
and then we’ll get our medals, boys,
and sail back home again.

But X was full of dying men
and Y was full of dead,
and Heaven, boys, was full of shells
that whistled overhead.

O Johnny Turk keeps shooting, boys,
so keep your heads down low:
we’ll be in Consty-nobble soon,
cos Churchill tells us so.

I just stood up to see the sea.
It’s quiet, boys, I said,
and something whistled through the sky
and hit me in the head.

The farm is still at Paterau,
the sheep graze by the sea,
and men ride up and down the bush
who’ve never heard of me.

O History is made by men
with nothing else to do.
They watch the rain, and have ideas
to try on me and you.

But glory isn’t Names and Noise,
it isn’t Arms and Men:
it’s living out the little life
I’ll never live again.

*****

John Gallas writes: “A ballad for the Aotearoa/NZ dead at Gallipoli (Gelibolu). The epigraph is a photo caption from a book that, along with the accompanying picture of F. Come, set me writing. In common with lots of Australian/NZ commentaries (eg. Peter Weir’s film ‘Gallipoli’) it is less than complimentary about the Top Brass, and attempts to represent the soldiers themselves as people from farms and towns who would never come back. Gallipoli remains a potent historical event to NZers: the debate between splendid sacrifice vs foolish waste, world solidarity vs nothing-to-do-with-us, significance vs time-to-forget-it is ongoing. 

“The Blue and Red Pencil drawing by David Barker (Gallipoli, 1915) represents an anonymous ‘cheery’ EnZed soldier. Like Come, he never got back to his farm; he was “At the landing, and here ever since”. The drawing is on p.53 of my collection ‘Star City‘, from which this poem is taken.”

*****

John Gallas, Aotearoa/NZ poet, published mostly by Carcanet. Saxonship Poet (see www.saxonship.org), Fellow of the English Association, St Magnus Festival Orkney Poet, librettist, translator and biker. 2025 Midlands Writing Prize winner. Presently living in Markfield, Leicestershire. Website is www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk which has a featured Poem of the Month, complete book list, links and news.