F. Chiltern is represented by this single poem in Robert Dickinson’s diary, “Servigliano Calling.”

Prisoner Son

When from some far off foreign land,
Your son writes home, and says he’s grand,
His food is good, he’s never blue,
Your heart tells you, that it’s not true,
You sense the sigh between the lines,
A mother can, she knows the signs.

You feel he’s sad, he longs for home;
That prisoner son, somewhere near Rome,
Perhaps he’s ill, he would not say,
He never did, it’s not his way,
He would not tell the sorry tale,
Of hunger, boredom, and lack of mail.

So feel proud of your prisoner son,
And when this weary war is done,
He’ll come back with his same old smile,
Say he’s been happy all the while,
But glad he’s back to the old ways,
Of bright, and cloudless, carefree days.