The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard |
(Instrumental)
Alf Razzell: Two things that haunted me the most are
the days, I
imagine, when I had to collect the paybooks;
and when I left Bill Hubbard in
no-man's-land.
I was picked up and taken into their trench.
And I'd no sooner taken
two or three steps down the trench
when I heard a call, 'Hello Razz, I'm glad
to see you.
This is my second night here,' and he said 'I'm feeling
bad,'
and it was Bill Hubbard, one of the men we'd trained in
England,
one of the original battalion. I had a look at his wound; rolled
him over.
I could see that it was probably a fatal wound. You
could
imagine what pain he was in, he was dripping with sweat;
and after
I'd gone about three shellholes, traversed that,
had it been...had there been
a path or a road I could have done better.
He pummelled me, 'Put me down, put
me down, I'd rather die,
I'd rather die, put me down.'
I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any further,
let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't be
found,
let's have another go.' He said 'All right then.'
And the
same thing happened. He couldn't stand it any more,
and I had to leave
him there, in no-man's-land.
