Private Charles Hannah | kellysongcollective

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

A first son born in Belfast, Ontario bred

You look like your grandad is what they all said

My mother would sing and lay alongside

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

I was eighteen years old when I was misled

It’s men that we want is what the sign said

And the 2nd Battalion I wore it with pride

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

We smoked and we laughed how we’d murder the krauts

Never asking ourselves if we had any doubts

About killing a person who’s not on your side

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

Imagine how bad, it’s a million times worse

If you sleep you can’t dream you just wait and you curse

And the killing each day left you more horrified

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

I killed a young soldier younger than me

He rose from a pillbox but he didn’t see

In truth I wanted to run and to hide

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

The bullets relentless so was the rain

November in Belgium pitted and stained

With the blood and the death til I sat and I cried

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

We waded through mud in crater and ditch
But we captured and held the Passchendaele ridge

Through a hail of shells thousands dead on each side

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died

The guns fell silent too late I suppose

My body’s not there beneath crosses in rows

I died in a quagmire and a damned genocide

Private Charles Hannah Presumed To Have Died