The gunfire split the still night air,
From my side the blood flowed red,
Informer's work had been well done,
An ambush had been lead.

My comrades turned back to my head,
I waved them on again,
Escape for me was hopeless,
Why should they die in vain?

The soldiers soon around me stood,
Their unit I could guess,
Their blackened faces could not disguise,
The hated SAS.

"Finish him off!" I heard one say,
As a gun moved towards my head,
"Tomorrow they'll all sing about
Another Fenian dead!"

"Just drop those guns down gently!"
A voice called from the dark,
They wailed and fired a volley,
But it seemed that they'd missed their mark.

The stranger stood before them now,
With eyes that seemed alight,
The cowards turned and quickly fled,
As he raised his Armalite.

His face, somewhere I'd seen before,
Though I couldn't tell just where,
But I knew from his green battledress,
He was a volunteer.

He never said a word to me,
As we moved off through the night,
I was hoisted across his shoulders,
A burden that seemed light.

"You'll be save here at last" he said,
As a cottage door drew near,
"They're friends of mine,
Though we haven't met for manys a lonely year."

He let me gently down,
Beside a wall of slate and stone,
I turned to thank my comrade brave,
But I found I was alone.

When next I woke I found myself,
With a family staunch and true,
I told them of my comrade strange,
But it seemed they already knew.

I gazed upon that parlour wall,
And things came clear at last,
And I thought of songs and of stories,
Heard often in the past.

And I knew than that our struggle,
Was a fight we could not lose!
For beneath his picture,
There I read: 'In memory of Francis Hughes'.