The Gas Man

And the lads you patched up
Or held through to the end – Special Boat Squad, Paras,
The Boys from Hereford –

What campaign medals were pinned on them,
Those Brits who fought in the Mekong Delta,
And then fell back to Saigon?

A war that was not ours to fight,
With no clear right or wrong,
Was kept under everyone’s radar.

And as you put them under and out, before the knife,
Did you ever wonder which God-forsaken paddy field
Was forever Chepstow, Leeds or Fife?

Where would they say they’d bought one?
A tank fuck-up on the range at Castlemartin?
Some conscript’s careless round at the Epynt Butts?

‘The Viet Cong?  No, pal,
That’s where you’ve got it wrong,
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