Paul Bailey

Despite his efforts to escape, the field eventually claimed him. Its red grass spoke to him. It whispered: 'You're too young to die. You're too young to die.'
'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'
'A handsome blighter like you.'
'A handsome blighter like me.'
He was no longer paralysed. His young limbs moved swiftly, surely. they took him out into the trees, and beyond the trees into towns with foreign names. They took him into the warm night, with it's insect noises and its tiny, watchful, suddenly scampering animals. They took him away from death. They took him away from guns and wounds and howitzers.
Eric Talbot's blood coursed in his young veins.

He it was who found King Solomon's mines; he it was who peered down a valley into the Lost World.
He was called in to tea.
He would be brave one day. He would be fearless.
He would not be like Gerald Talbot, a dull commercial traveller who wrote poetry in his spare time.
he would be a man of action.

Your father is dead, Eric. I've made cucumber sandwiches. He did away with himself; he did himself in. And your favourite chocolate cake. In Hull, of all places. There's jelly too. You and I will have to make a go of things. Sit straight, dear - sit straight. Between us, we'll make a life for you. I bought cream as a special treat. In Hull, my dear, in a common lodgings. Be mother, Eric - pour for both of us. He left a note. There was no mention of me. Or you. It was addressed to Shelley. What a coward, Eric. What a perfectly disgusting coward.

- Old Soldiers