History Parade

We left the Scout hut shortly after dark,
to ambush regulars acting as invaders.

Later, there was to be a demonstration
of the use of a primitive stun grenade,

designed dramatically to improve morale
in the under-gunned Home Guard.

A Dunkirk veteran CSM from Caterham
had been driven down in a staff car to show us

the correct application of this novel weapon,
bakelite casing, with one small metal pin.

After patrolling in the silent dark,
failing to intercept our good-humoured opponents,

we assembled among the prostrate sarsen stones
beyond the Lacket, for a quiet smoke.

Then we fell in to watch the CSM,
who threw the stun grenade, followed it in

and, as it exploded, fell, killed by the pin.
He lay there, still, between two sarsen stones.

It was absolutely stunning. No one spoke.
I thought of the burial of Sir John Moore,

and tried to remember what had not been worth
the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier.

This poem, written many years ago, records a tragic incident of 1942 or 1943 (when I was just old enough to be a uniformed private in the Home Guard). The tragedy was understandably not given publicity. In recent enquiries I have been unable to establish the name, rank, regiment or corps of the victim, or the army base from which he came (maybe not ‘CSM from Caterham’). I should be glad if he were identified, and I could take his family to the exact spot where he died. (The stun grenade was redesigned). S.G.