Xavier Smith entered squalling, screaming
in 1914 - England safe and dreaming -
to parents of upper-middle class
who spurned a wedding as bourgeois farce.
At the age of twenty three,
he came to Spain with Vic and me.
With a spade for a gun and a workers tan
We drilled and marched saying ‘no pasaran!’
But pass they did, through and by.
Vic lost a leg and I lost an eye
Xav was lucky and made it through
just to die on the Kwai in ’42.
