<sup>“The following lines were discovered on the dead body of an American soldier killed in action in North Africa, in 1944. They were found by a corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps and were printed in a Tunis newspaper. They found their way to Britain through the United States. A friend of the writer of these lines, who was with him when they were written (and who survived the battle in which the writer was killed) said the soldier was a thoroughly wild character, but there were tears running down his face as he wrote the lines.

Look, God, I have never spoken to you,
And now I want to say: “How do you do?”

You see, God, they told me you didn’t exist,
And I, like a fool, believed all this.

Last night, from a shell hole, I saw your sky,
And I figured then they had told me a lie.

I wonder, God, if you’d take my poor hand?
Somehow I feel you would understand.
Strange I had to come to this hellish place
Before I had time to see your face.

Wel1, I guess there isn’t much more to say:
But I’m glad, God, that I met you today

The zero hour will soon be here
But I’m not afraid; because you are near.

The signal has come, I shall soon have to go
I like you lots - this I want you to know.

I am sure this’ll be a horrible fight:
Who knows? I may come to your House tonight.

Though I wasn’t friendly to you before,
I wonder, God, if You’d wait at Your door?

Look, I’m shedding tears, me shedding tears!
Oh! How I wish I’d known you those long, long years

Well, I have to go now, dear God. Goodbye
But now that I’ve met you, I’m not scared to die.</sup>

It is NEVER to LATE