Conscription began at boarding school.
Everybody had to do “Cadets”.
Holy brothers set aside their
black chalk-dusted dirty habits
for smart brown leather and khaki
with shoulder pips and swagger canes
and sported monikers like
Captain This and Major That.

Us boys did the same, except
our titles were more lowly:
Cadet Smith, Lance-Corporal Jones.
We blanco-ed our webbing
Bullshined our boots and did
our silly stiff salutes.
Saturdays the school turned into
a contemptible little army.

We’d heard the touching story of
the 1914 Christmas Truce
when battle noises stopped
and from the German lines
there rose the strains
of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
and jerry asked our permission
to collect his comrades’ bodies.

We questioned our lay instructor –
a burly ex-sar’nt-major – if
it had really been that way.
Oh yes, he snorted,
voice dripping with scorn.
Fraternisation took place
on the odd front here and there.
But it soon stopped.

Brought up in the Faith
of our Fathers, Holy Faith,
taught to us by gentle Jesus,
we’d got it in our noddles that
Peace was a higher thing than War.
What pitiable saps we were!
Not so, if playing at soldiers
was how you made your living.

Clark Nida, 2020.