English school work

The Railway Officer, wartime

I stood on the platform as the ground began to tremble, the eerie wail of the approaching train was almost inaudible behind the uproar. Behind me so many children, women and men were sobbing and screeching farewell. I have seen so many scenes just like this but it never fails to amaze me. A lonesome youth aged around eight totters by carefully carrying a swaddled baby, being tossed amongst the jostling crowd as a leaf is thrust about in an autumnal breeze “Oi, you laddie, where’s ye mam she aught be coming with the baby,” I cry over the noise “she down at the pub drunk herself blind she don’t care ‘bout us.” He states matter of factly. As he said those words I stopped. I don’t know what I wanted; to care for him; to save him; to protect him; to provide; to guarantee him a good life, as I turned my eyes toward the now empty space where his miniscule body should be only to find it empty, a horrific island in the sea of departing souls. I search the crowd for him, but he was gone, another lice ridden head amongst the heaving crowd.

The conductor cries all aboard. Mothers plea “I’ve changed my mind, come back.” But they can’t, held in place by seemingly invisible ties, labelled as though some gruesome kind of sellable wares.Children are screaming eyes and noses are streaming as I climb on the train whistle in hand the train starts to leave this land. I wonder who will be left when this devil of war has died a painful death. I turn around as we leave the station as the eerie wail of the air raid siren in the distance. I think of all those children left behind and when it all starts tomorrow.

As I closed my eyes safe in my hotel bed I contemplated how you could be alive the next minute and dead the next I just hope the boy and the baby live to see it through.