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ELEGY FOR JOE WARNOCK
Died November 1943 at Tamarkan, Thailand
of
Dysentry, Pellagra, Beri - Beri, Malaria and Tiredness of Life
The bed space next to mine is empty now.
The split cane shelf of yellow-green bamboo
On which we cram the few possessions lelt
And lie and try to rest when work is through
Has now a cold, forbidding, staring gap -
A space that no-one yet has moved to fill.
Although our shoulders touch and elbows dig,
That space is Joe's and Joe reserves it still.
Joe Warnock left us at the darkest hour,
The palm-oil lamplight casting darker shades
Across his shrunken face and hollowed eyes,
And with the fading lamp Joe also fades.
Where, for the living there is no escape,
He finds the way that brings for him release
From pain and fever, bugs and lice and dirt
And leads to his own Heaven and to peace.
So on a rice-sack Joe was carried out
And placed with others who had died last night
And wait to join the daily grey cortege
That takes them to the grave and gone from sight.
But has he really gone? if we look back
Will Joe not still be lying as before,
His threadbare blanket round his shrunken frame?
But no, we'll hear his Belfast burr no more.
The bed space next to mine is empty now.
Joe Wamock's gone and I have said goodbye.
The friendship that began three years ago
At Scarborough where we trained with hopes so high
Has ended in this pit at Tamarkan,
And he who went through life without a frown
Ran out of wish or will to stay alive
And laid his cruel burden down.
Sydney Hunphreys (5th Field Regt: RA 1943)
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