FORTUNES OF WAR

by Paul Comben

Reprinted from The Rune No.7

In '39 I felt a cold I had not felt before
When a grey old man who fumbled things fumbled us to war
This time it was Poland and the rights of smaller nations
Last time it was Belgium and our solemn obligations
But both fell rather quickly espite our protestations

Keen for active service, I joined the LDV
And was issued with a carving-knife and a pot to make the tea

The war itself got nasty when we faltered at Dunkirk
So I called the Frenchies cowards and the grey old man a berk
And he dissolving quickly just fumbled off to death
And instead we got a drunkard with a grey old drunkards breath

but we rallied round old Winnie, I suppose it was the speeches
We liked to hear him fighting on and dying on his beaches
He mumbled of invasion so we dug up half the park
And played at killing Germans in the bushes and the dark
We waited for their fury but their fury headed east
And then we were the ally of the land we knew the least

The Beeb said Uncle Stalin was a kind and generous man
And that previous information was a wicked Nazi plan
Winie drank with Josef then Franklin joined in the fun
And the merry threesome went and blasted the hun
But when Poland fell to Russia and Russia held on tight
I wondered for a moment if I understood things right

But eventually in 45 it was rumoured that we'd won
So I put away my carving knife and my War Department gun
We gathered round the Cenotaph and we sang all through the day
For our nation was still tea shops good bitter and Will Hay\I though of Mr. Pickwick and qauaint old London trams
I watched the scenes around me grow dim and rather old
Then a wind blew straight down Whitehall and that wind was icy cold

I was given to a prefab that was built upon the land
Where a grubby little factory had made sandbags for the sand
And that was now my castle my prison and my tomb
with it's corrugated ceiling and its corrugated gloom
Things kept getting darker so may nation stopped for light
And the Titfield village flew away and vanished out of sight

Attlee fell to Winnie, Macmillan had his day
There were noises in the Commons when Burgess slipped away
And the Wind Chande? I felt it come, and expected it to rush
Across my green and pleasant land and instantly to crush
My chine tea cups, my weedless lawn, and the thins that I called home
I saw the whiskey young men go naked in the sqauare
So I locked my mind a '55 and did my living there

But then one day the doorbell rang and a voice spoke throught the glass
it was classified as fairly safe and issued with a pass
It seemed that we had fallen to a bout of civil fighting
and to save on bills and such as that they cut off all my lighting
Iwas told to carry something white and be safe indoors by nine
Then a chill came very quickly and I thought of '39
The news was strangely spoken and its lying made me ill
We saluted piles of beetrooots and watched Triumph of the Pill
No smiling was permitted and you never could get warm
Remembering forbidden times on London Bridge before the storm