"13/4/18" - so the faded hand-written entry begins on a yellowed parchment page,

Proclaiming its message from a century ago - over its skin of extreme old age.

The black ink from a new-fangled fountain pen brings the nightmare of dried-up blood

That splashed and spurted, to leave its stain across the muck and mud.

So near the end, cruelly caught by death, their life-force fatally spilled:

My father's terse words tell it: "Hocking, Bell, Madden, Scott, Reynolds killed". 

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