This poem is found inside of a British Prisoner of War Magazine called - The Link - and was composed in 1917 by an anonymous author going under the name 'Nimbo'. It is an affectionate tribute to a French Colonial Soldier called Cissarat Kalifa, speaks of the realisation that people are the same under the skin, regardless of race/creed/colour and origin, and is remarkably progressive and tolerant considering the time and place it was written.

We're just the same - there's nothing queer
Except a bit more black!
We found that you weren't in the rear        (Meaning 'we realised you were not hiding, you were with us on the front line)
The night of our attack!

You've been the same just all alone
Amidst the bullet showers
Your grin the night when all went wrong     (All service personnel will recall laughing in the face of great fear, or when things go wrong)
Was just the same of ours!

Though doubly white the snow-flakes glance
Against your swarthy head
The blood you lost down there in France
Was just the same old red!

Nimbo.

From The Link POW Magazine, 1917.
This ‘souvenir book’ is the work of British prisoners of war interned at Döberitz near Berlin.