Chavasse

Sometimes it happens, it's how people are
And it's risky to generalize
But some are born under a different star
They see things through different eyes
It was such a man, you won't know his name
At least it's unlikely you do
Who was, so his comrades would loudly proclaim
The bravest that ever they knew
So this is a story of calling and class
Remember the name, Noel Godfrey Chavasse

Noel came out of a time and a place
Where duty and service were all
There wasn't a challenge he wouldn't embrace
Responding whatever the call
An Olympian competitor, Noel was there
The summer of 1908
But something more beckoned, the mission to care
That nothing would ever frustrate
We're sowing the seeds now for what came to pass
The story and legend of Noel Chavasse

Today, we would say that the guy had a goal
He knew what he wanted to be
Applying himself with both body and soul
He qualified in surgery
It wasn't the way that at first he had planned
But just before outbreak of war
He offered his service to country and King
And the Royal Army Medical Corps
Now slowly we move to a critical mass
Events that immortalized Noel Chavasse

It's 1915, the army sees fit
To award him the Military Cross
In 1916, still doing his bit
And amidst all of the carnage and loss
Through what was gazetted "A Selfless Display
Of Conspicuous Gallantry"
The Military Cross moves aside and makes way
For Captain Chavasse's VC
Yet more will emerge from the mud and morass
Of the Somme in the story of Noel Chavasse

The second Victoria Cross that he won
Awarded the following year
For braving the perils of mortar and gun
Showed selflessness way beyond fear
Whilst wounded and under the heaviest of fire
Repeatedly, still he returned
Crossing the craters and crossing the wire
Attending the broken and burned
But two short days later, the ranks and the brass
Lamented the passing of Noel Chavasse

He had been, and proudly, a child of his age
The bravest, they said, of the brave
Again, a citation laid bare on the page
The many he'd managed to save
One solitary soldier received the award
Of the double Victoria Cross
Another who never came home from abroad
Another expendable loss
He's resting in Wipers, forgotten alas
The man and the hero called, Noel Chavasse