The Ballad of Bill Hubbard

Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I had to
collect the pay books; and when I left Bill Hubbard in no-man's-land.
«I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I’d no sooner taken
two or three steps down the trench when I heard a call, 'Hello Razz,
I’m glad to see you. This is my second night here,' and he said 'I'm
feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard, one of the men we’d trained
in England, one of the original battalion. I had a look at his wound,
rolled him over; I could see it was probably a fatal wound. You could
imagine what pain he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after
I’d gone about three shell holes, traversed that, had it been… had
there been a path or a road I could have done better. He pummeled
me, 'Put me down, put me down, I’d rather die, I’d rather die, put me
down.' I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can’t go any further,
let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won’t be found, let’s
have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And the same thing
happened; he couldn’t stand it any more, and I had to leave him
there, in no-man's-land.»
I don’t mind about the war,
that’s one of the things I like to watch,
if it’s a war going on, 'cause then I know if our side’s winning,
if our side’s losing…