The Happy Warrior (11 page)

Egypt heard our hearty voice,

And didn't seem to quite rejoice;

A land of dirty wogs and stinks

Of pyramids and sour sphinx,

In cabarets we drank and danced,

In Sister Street sometimes romanced;

Read their books of foul perversion,

Saw the can-can with aversion

In Libya we met the Wop,

Quickly got him on the hop,

Soon we took complete control,

Had the “Itie” up the pole.

We captured lorries, stores and guns,

Of all equipment there was tons;

Guzzled wine, ate vermicelli,

Regardless of the poor old belly.

But German leaders took the reins

Reorganised the wop remains,

With new equipment, guns and tanks,

Threatened to engage our flanks.

As most had gone to Greece or Crete,

We had make a quick retreat,

And barely kept ahead a lap,

In the great Benghazi Handicap.

We made our stand in old Tobruk,

To stop the Hun by hook or crook,

For months we fought with visage grim —

Chances then looked pretty slim,

We lived with fleas in filthy holes;

The sand entered our very souls

Shelled and shot at, daily stukered,

No wonder we were nearly euchred.

Rumour said we'd be relieved,

But most of us just disbelieved;

We thought that by the world forgot,

Our bones would in the desert rot.

How it happened no one knew,

But at last our dreams came true;

We limped out of our lousy holes,

Relieved by several thousand Poles.

Long hours by the sea we waited,

Anxiously with breathing bated,

Expectant ears alert to hear,

The drone of Herman coming near.

Our ships stole in across the bay

Where battered hulks in dozens lay;

We jumped aboard, were on our way —

No place for shipping to delay.

Back to Egypt — Amariya,

And buckshee bottles of Aussie beer,

So sudden breaking of the drought

Nearly made us all pass out.

In Palestine we met the wogs,

Dressed in their expectant togs;

Allah will be born in pants

And every Arab has a chance,

Flies fed round their filthy eyes,

Most of them were German spies;

They'd steal the milk from out your tea,

Then coolly bite for buckshee.

The dusky little Arab bints,

With their seductive autumn tints,

Were devilish hard to quite convince

And very seldom took our hints.

Their beer was barely drinkable,

Their spirits quite unthinkable,

But some who wouldn't knock it back

Went crazy drinking cognac.

We roamed around Jerusalem,

The begging wogs abusin' 'em,

Spent money on pretty Jewesses,

Barely bought a few caresses

We went to all the holy places,

Bitten by a dozen races,

Learned the way to go to heaven,

Then went down to Kilo Seven.

To Syria we soldiered on,

Like lorries in a marathon;

Women waved from every town,

One even pulled a garment down.

While we lingered at El Aine

Many beakers did we drain,

Of queer concoctions labeled ‘wine'

From grapes but recent off the vine.

At last we landed at Alep,

The girls were gay and full of pep;

We trod the streets with airy step,

Established our distinctive rep.

In cafes sat and sipped vin blanc,

And to the music added song;

A wild and woolly khaki throng,

We often drank the whole night long.

All over town you'd hear our call,

The parody of “Bless 'em all!”

We lived on chicken, steak and eggs —

They must have thought we'd hollow legs.

We mounted any passing gharry,

Took the reins and didn't tarry;

Despite the drivers sad demurs

Drove around like mad Ben Hurs.

For miles we wandered underground,

A great bazaar was all around,

Even may have gone — who knows?

To the street of a thousand so-and-sos.

Our Christmas spirit of good cheer,

Was arak, rum and Aussie beer,

Champagne, gin, Vat 69,

And rare Italian altar wine.

Dear old ladies played hostess,

Entertained with great success,

The best of all was, on the whole,

Madame Lola — dear old soul!

They welcomed us to Pension Blighty

Even though we acted flighty;

The good clean fun at Pension Badre

Might well be fit for any padre.

Such happy homes were very handy,

They frequently had cherry brandy,

When other ranks had gone away,

The officers came in to play.

When we had nowhere else to go

We saw a sensuous Wog Show;

Dancing girls with swaying hips,

Attentive wogs with parted lips,

At seventeen degrees below

The place lay under feet of snow,

Snowballs whizzed in all directions,

Made some pretty good connections.

We saw the ancient citadel,

Learnt its history and its smell,

Constructed good defensive works,

Fraternised with cautious Turks.

Now the Japs were in the war,

Would soon be knocking at our door,

We said goodbye to Madamoiselle;

Soldiered on to — who could tell?

Down to Suez, onto the sea,

Oh, Middle East, farewell to thee,

You gave us hell sometimes, it's true,

But often gave us good times too.

“Whither?” was the general query,

Everyone produced a theory:

Even money Malaya, Burma,

The odds on home were even firmer.

Bombay was a port of call,

A heavy time was had by all,

But those who visited Grant Road

Later carried all the load.

Singapore fell to the Japs,

Then the Indies quick collapse,

Java held out for a while,

But soon succumbed to yellow guile.

Thus ended weeks of speculation

On what would be our destination;

We slowly slipped across the foam

And knew we headed right for home.

At thought of home our spirits rose,

We washed and pressed our service clothes,

Let ourselves fondly believe,

We'd soon be going home on leave.

They sneaked us out to Sandy Creek

And granted us a lousy week;

Whose home were in another state,

Had many, many weeks to wait,

We traveled on to Tenterfield,

Our vicious natures quite concealed;

The people all showed naïve amaze,

That we behaved in decent ways.

Another move to Kilcoy,

Where people really did enjoy

Seeing that everything was done

To make our stay a pleasant one.

The training here was pretty tough,

In country pretty close and rough;

Were quite content to go to beddie

After going out on a ‘Don Freddie'.

Then we grizzled and grumbled and swore,

Knew we were on our way once more

Over the sea to a foreign shore,

'Twas harder this time than it was before,

En route they told us to beware,

Many evils await to ensnare,

Told us how we'd get our share,

Of tropic disease and disaster to spare.

Then we landed at Papua,

Our moods got rapidly bluer,

Each sharpened up his trusty bayonet,

So the Japs could with ease contain it.

Presently we fought the Jap

And showed him how to fight a sarap,

A fast and furious affray,

Known as the Battle of Milne Bay

'Twas his first defeat in any land,

We dished it out with lavish hand,

Hardly any got away,

The rest of them are here to stay.

(So our story waits in Milne Bay,

How much more, no one can say;

The final verse will mark the day

When worldwide peace is here to stay.)

B. T. Woods

(AWM PR 00359)

Our First Stunt

It was Saturday night in the boozer,

When the word was passed around

That our convoy would leave next morning

When we heard the bugle sound.

At four ack emma we were out of bed

Before the sun arose,

The breakfast was stew and not so hot

And the work was on the nose.

We travelled through the desert

Known to us now as Sinai,

And hour after hour

Saw nothing but sand and sky.

At last we reached our barracks

A place called Mersa Matruh,

Where Cleo and Anthony used to make love

And the Duke and Duchess too.

We had a lot of Ities there

And didn't like the hicks,

So we stood around and smoked and yarned

While those bastards swung the picks.

Stan Pinson

(AWM PR00526)

Spring Offensive

In where the smoke runs black against the snow

And bullets drum against the rocks he went

And saw men die with childish wonderment

Where bayonets glitter in the sudden glow;

And sleek shells scream and mortars cough below

There tanks lurch up and shudder to a halt

Before the superb anger of the guns

Then flares go up — the rattle of a bolt.

Rifles stutter and voices curse the Huns

And then he jerked and toppled to the ground,

His ears too full of noise, his eyes of light,

His scattered cartridge clips glint brassy bright

A Vickers cackles madly from the mound.

Oh, where the red anemone brims over

To swarm in brambled riot down a rise,

There we will lay him, lay your widow'd lover,

And wipe the poor burnt face and gently cover

The look of startled wonder in his eyes.

Let beauty come, let her alone

Bemoan those broken lips with kisses of her own.

Sig M. Biggs

(AWM PR 00526)

Libya

Oh, Libya! thou land of pests,

With Nature's wiles one never rests

And Jerry shows his nasty ways

By shelling us for days and days.

The CQ sends the rations short

And drinks the rum, we've always thought;

Of our CO I cannot speak —

We have a new one every week.

The morn it shines so awfully bright

The bastard snipes with ease at night

And makes us jump and swear with fright

And cry: You bastard, come and fight!

We live in holes dug in the ground

Where moles and rats and fleas abound;

There's flies and ants and nasty chats

And bloody beetles as big as bats.

There's Messerschmitts and good old Foux

(We always have a shot at you)

And Whispering Willie winds his way

And where he'll land no one can say;

And Verey lights go up at night —

They are a most delightful sight

And raiding bombers come and go

To be chased by onions, to and fro.

There's booby traps and tangled wire

To be erected under fire;

So Libya now rest content

You're all the evils ever sent.

Anon

(AWM PR 00526)

The Pillbox on the Rise

Now this land is hot and dusty

Not worth a bloody hoot,

It would take a million acres

To support a bandicoot

Out towards where the escarpment

Rears beneath the lower skies

My mates and I are living

In a pillbox on the rise.

Well, it wasn't built for comfort

But we stand some heavy knocks

The ventilation's not hygienic

And it smells of sweaty sox.

At night the sand fleas eat us

And by day we have the flies,

A delightful little mansion

Is this pillbox on the rise.

We live on army rations —

Bully beef or beans or stew,

Some Mungaree and margarine

And Nelsons' evil brew.

To stretch and sleep in comfort

We would need one twice the size,

But we've got to be contented

In this pillbox on the rise.

Oft the Sigs drop in upon us

When they're running out their lines,

They've got them stretched about the place

Like bloody pumpkin vines.

They sit and smoke and yarn awhile

And tell the latest lies;

We have our little gatherings

At the pillbox on the rise.

It's not a fast existence

But we've heard a bomber or so

And when the ack-ack opens up,

Come out and see the show.

Now Smithy's quite disheartened

But he'd better dry his eyes —

He won't be always waiting

In a pillbox on a rise.

But someone's got to man it

And I guess we are the mugs

While we dream of leave in Alex

And of beer in foaming mugs;