Charlie was a companion of note
of whom, when he died, nothing was wrote.
He and I had an immediate, indefinable rapport
until he too became another casualty of war.
We struggled together through waterlogged mud,
amid broken limbs and the stench of blood
to deliver mail, supplies and keep the men fed,
and return to the depot with the injured and dead.

Late one day along a shell-torn track
we came under a prolonged mortar attack.
We were out in the open with nowhere to flee;
several were injured, and Charlie and me.
Charlie carried me stumbling, most of the way
Until exhausted he collapsed and that’s where we lay.
It was then that I whispered to Charlie my fears
And he listened to me through my flood of tears.

When I awoke in the morning I was chilled to the bone,
Charlie was gone, he’d left me alone.
I searched and called out, but he could not be found.
A mile further on there he was, on the ground.
I hobbled to his side and lifted his head,
But I knew, I just knew that Charlie was dead.
Since then not a day has passed me by
That I think of Charlie, my horse, 15 hands high.