Colour Sergeant Nightingale, a Victoria Cross veteran and member of a mysterious guild, shares his solemn prose. (Extract from Homo Nova.)
Listen in, then;
I once pledged an oath to white graves of no name
That I would defend their cause and repay their souls no shame
For if alive today afore their eyes
They’d see their kinsmen in their demise
Their greatest sorrow would be the sin
That their descendants’ hearts surrendered their win
And upon the stroke of the Eleventh Hour they all would wave
Goodbye to the Europe they’d died to save
Yet in my sacrifice a debt shall be paid
To join the Unnamed; my oath never strayed
Upon my lid shall the poppy wreath be laid
And wrought from the Cannon, a new medal be made
An emblem of gallantry long after bones fade
For Valour; may it inspire man in his courageous crusade
As you were.
Excerpted from Homo Nova and the House of Abraham by Tommy Crabtree Copyright © 2021 by Tommy Crabtree. Excerpted by permission of Fireside Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.