Prose on the Afghan frontline, by Lindsey Hilsum: I had a book of World War II poetry with me while in Helmand with British troops.
I had a book of World War II poetry with me while in Helmand with British troops.
The conflict did not produce a Wilfred Owen or a Siegfried Sassoon, but the poems about fighting in the Middle East and North Africa seemed relevant as we flew low over the desert.
As news came in of the 200th British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan, I read a poem by Dennis McHarrie, a Wing Commander in the RAF, posted near Benghazi in Libya in 1942.
Amongst all the eulogies and political declarations about the purpose of campaign in Helmand, I wonder if some soldiers feel as McHarrie did:
Luck
I suppose they’ll say his last thoughts were of simple things,
Of April back at home, and the late sun on his wings;
Or that he murmured someone’s name
As earth reclaimed him sheathed in flame.
Oh God! Let’s have no more of empty words,
Lip service ornamenting death!
The worms don’t spare the hero;
Nor can children feed upon resounding praises of his deed.
“He died who loved to live,” they’ll say,
“Unselfishly so we might have today!”
Like hell! He fought because he had to fight;
He died that’s all. It was his unlucky night.
Except that in World War II there was consensus that “he had to fight”, whereas today many remain unconvinced.
At Camp Bastion, the giant and growing multinational military base between Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, they’ve erected a simple stone cairn with a cross on top made of shell casings, the names of the British dead inscribed on brass plaques. It made me think of Rupert Brooke – it was a corner of a foreign field that is forever England.
When the British have given up and gone home, and the desert has blown over, burying the huge airfield and military base, I wonder if the memorial will remain for passing camel herders to look at and wonder who were these foreigners in the early years of the 21st century who laid down their lives in the sands of southern Afghanistan.