My dad, no hero, didn't look

for punch-ups. When the call came

he signed for the pay corps. 

But the look on his face

sometimes got him into bother.

He couldn't quite stomach the drilling,

or hide what he thought

of the shouts, the how's your father, 

the moustache and tiny eyes,

the whole bloody rigmarole of the sergeant major. 

One night in Aldershot, he'd had enough

and went awol. It was quite simple.

At the back of a column, at a fork in the road, 

the rest marched one way, he went the other,

without a clue what was round the corner.