Impression sketch of soldiers last kiss - by Jamie.
The small French Commune Of Vervins,
In Picardy, was witness
To a story of a local miller, who
helped
Eleven English soldiers.
The men separated from their corps -
When left behind and
Had become lost, when a local miller,
Kept the soldiers hidden.
The village people knew of them,
So when Germans
Appeared the secret was kept - except
For one bribed villager.
The man informed a German officer
Of the British presence –
As prisoners, they were sentenced
To go before a firing squad.
Arrests then included the miller.
Along with his family;
His seventeen-year-old daughter
Was then questioned.
Asked if her father had accomplices,
The girl stood firm
Before them, saying nothing - to do
With her what they would.
The German told her the English men
Would be shot - but why?
They had done nothing wrong, only
Hidden by herself.
She made the claim to punishment,
But was asked further,
To which man was she a mistress?
She cried: all were friends.
While the German relented to say she
Was a good French woman,
A reprisal had to be carried out -
their
Verdict was on them all.
The Miller's daughter would be sent
For 2 years in prison - his son
Of 15, to go to German Reformatory -
His wife, 4 years of prison.
The miller’s fate was to be shot,
along
With the English - sentences
To be immediate - eleven men walked
To a wall - with permission
The French girl kissed each one of
them.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1915. Heroic French Woman – Hidden
English Soldiers. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 21 May. P.8. Col.7. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11608898/Daily-Telegraph-May-21-1915.html
[Accessed: 21 May 2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 21 May 2015).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11608898/Daily-Telegraph-May-21-1915.html
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1France
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