Its one year on from one minute to six. One year on from when the camp stood still to attention outside their tents for him. And one year on from when the birds sang their last song, to the half of me who was braver.

It is July now; the birds have started singing for his birthday. The poppies have covered his resting bed. I know I have done him proud though, for I did not cry, did not shed a tear, and did not show him my feelings. Leaving him behind in his cell was like abandoning everything I’ve ever known.

Poor Charlie, my poor brother.

Last May I was told there was soon going to be an almighty push; this May, nothing, this June, nothing, this July, only four more days will tell. People are starting to ask if they are ever going to wake us up one day with a whistle crying, “Today’s the day”. Pete never returned from No-Man’s-Land. Frankly he hasn’t missed much. The routine’s been the same for my eternity of years up on the front line. I wake up, more wet and smelly than before, come out to the top of the trench, keep my guard for a while with my gas mask at the ready, and go back to sleep. No breaks. No stops. No surrenders. Just defend the country!

Although I’ve used the old ‘shoot you own leg trick’, which only gets you out of the line for a matter of weeks, nothing can release me from these ever-lasting miseries. Will they ever end? Will I ever get home to Little Tommo so I can be the father Charlie was never allowed to be? Will I ever see the world light up as Molly smiles, or get the love from a hug, that could tame a lion, from Mum? Or most of all to tell Big Joe that the last moment Charlie and I shared together was to know that he would be singing Oranges and Lemons to his death. “It’s what I’ll be singing in the morning. It won’t be God save the ruddy King or All Things bleeding Bright and Beautiful, it’ll be Oranges and Lemons, for Big Joe. For all of us.” They were our last words together.

Life is no use living… if you have nothing to live for.