»I wouldn't say he is the perfect soldier, m' Lord,
But he is a very good soldier.
Admittedly, his record isn't spotless.
But there's nothing that cannot
Be accounted for by youthful high spirits
And he is very young, barely twenty,
Very fit, bright, proved to be
Extremely amenable to training.
There o no evidence of psychological disturbance,
However, he can give no definite explanation
Or reasons for his actions,
So now, with your permission, my Lord,
I should like to call the boy to the witness box.«
»I don't know why I did it, Sir,
I think we had some stupid arguement
In camp the night before
Over a card game: we played cards a lot, Sir,
It's the boredom, you see,
Mind you, it's enough to make anyone ratty
Listening to that shelling
And those wogs k**ing each other
Day in, day out; and nothing for us to do
Since we're there to 'keep the peace'
Bit of a joke that, Sir,
If you don't mind me saying so.
We were all well and truly
Stalled off, Sir, shut up all the time...
Anyhow I think Smithie said I'd cheated.
But I hadn't, Sir,
And he wouldn't leave off
All that night, needling me.
And the nerd day, on patrol, Sir,
I told him to pack it in
Or I'd let him have it...
I didn't mean it, but I was upset
Then the other two just laughed
And said I was all mouth
And always had been.
It's funny, Sir, I remember really clear
How hot and dusty it was
And I could hear in my head
Sergeant Becker's voice, from combat training,
Shouting, shouting,
»k** the ba*tard!, k**,
You little f**ing nancy boy...«
And I just held my finger on the trigger,
What happened after that was like a dream...«