The Life of Thomas Albert Crawford Thomas Albert Crawford was a soldier in the 15th Durham Light Infantry. He joined the army when he was eighteen. He fought and survived some of the worst battles, such as the Battle of Loos. On July 1, 1916, he was in the midst of the Battle of the Somme when a bullet hit his rifle, causing a serious wound. He was discharged due to his physical condition. He then returned to the north-east of England, where he had grown up. While working nights at a Scottish power station, he wrote his memoir, a story about daily life in the trenches. His wife died of cancer and both of his children died before they turned thirty-five. He remarried and had two children. Their names were Colin and Brian. Colin died when he was twenty-five. Tommy died shortly thereafter. Brian published his father's memoirs in 2006 and titled them “Tommy.” Sources http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-stretcher-bearer/ http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit /gwa/item/5717 THE STRETCHER BEARER by Thomas Albert Crawford My stretcher is a scarlet stain, and as I try to scrape it clean, I'll tell you one thing: I'm sick of the pain, as far as I've felt, as far as I know I've seen; around me there is the infernal night, and while I trace the red edge of war, I wonder if in the height of heaven our God does not turn away his face. I don't care whose crime it may be, I have no responsibility for relatives or clan; I feel no hatred, I only see how a man destroys his brother; I don't wave any flag, I only know that here next to the dead I wait, a million hearts are burdened with pain, a million houses are desolate. darkness far and near, all night I searched for those painful ones. The dawn rises suddenly and I still hear the crimson chorus of weapons. He looks, like a b...... middle of paper ...... om, but all he can see is how men kill their own kind. As he watches thousands and thousands of men die, he neither rebels nor protests. He, however, carries on his shoulders/conscience all the "troubles" of suffering men. He portrays it as his stretcher. The poet says that now there are “a million houses (that) are desolate,” because so many innocent lives have been wasted. The poet describes the darkness in which he sees all these young men and boys as “dripping darkness.” Observe and search for all these poor souls until daybreak. He describes the sun as a “ball of blood” that is constantly and ruthlessly present on the “scene of wrath and wrong.” Someone shouts “Quick! Stretcher bearers on the run!”, and the poet wonders aloud how much longer this suffering and devastation will have to continue before God decides to intervene and put an end to everything.