The Happy Warrior (7 page)

As any white man should.

They had to prove our toughness;

To them it seemed great fun,

To show the seasoned Tommies

Just how the job is done.

No man can beat the tropics

Be he white or brown,

Yet we worked for nine long weeks

And never saw a town.

If you stop and think a moment

You'll know what happened next,

I'm afraid I cannot tell you;

Our friend the censor would be vexed.

And then without a warning

They shocked us to the core

With a very generous offer

Of leave in Singapore.

Like everything that's pleasant,

This scheme had a catch —

Twice a week leave parties left

With fifteen in each batch;

So even if the planters,

All the Englishmen from here,

Escorted us to parties

And filled us up with beer,

We wouldn't be on velvet

As many seem to think;

Every man would wait a year

Before he got free drink.

Like the easier glamour

These parties are a myth,

So also was the woman

Whose husband's name was Smith.

She wrote about our parties

And how we liked the clime

Although she never saw us —

She didn't have the time.

I visited the island

On my three days' leave,

The way I found the English

It really makes me grieve.

Perhaps they'll love their prestige

And say, “How do you do!”

If the Japs move southward

And we stop them getting through.

The way they act at present

If they owned a jeweler's shop

And an Aussie was to ask the time

They wouldn't even stop.

I am not vindictive,

They don't have to talk;

I'd forgive most anything

But at rudeness I will baulk.

We may be only privates

On a lousy army pay,

But even if they're millionaires

We're better men than they.

This poem is not libel;

There's truth in all I say.

I hope I'll never have to work

If this is a holiday.

Raymond John Colenso

(AWM PR 00689)

This Place They Call …?

There's places that I've been in

I didn't like too well,

Scotland's far too blooming cold

And Cairo's hot as hell.

(The Pilsner beer is always warm…)

In each there's something crook

But each and all are perfect [compared] to

This place they call ...

We reckoned El Agheila

Was none too flash a place

El Abiar and Beda Fomm

Weren't in the bloody race

At the towns this side of Benghasi

We hadn't time to look —

But I'll take my oath they're better than

This place they call …?

I've seen some dust storms back at home

That made the housewives work;

Here there's enough inside our shirts

To smother all of Bourke.

Two diggers cleaned their dugout

And their blankets out they shook

Two Colonels perished in the dust in

This place they call …?

There's militant teetotallers

Who abhor all kinds of drink;

There's wives break good bottles

And pour them down the sink.

This place would suit them to the ground;

We've searched in every nook

But booze is rare as hens' teeth in

This place they call …?

There's centipedes like pythons

And there's countless hordes of fleas

As big as poodle dogs they come

A' snapping 'round your knees

And scorpions large as AFVs

Come out to have a look;

There's surely lots of livestock in

This place they call …?

The shelling's nice and frequent

And they whistle overhead;

You go into your dugout

And find shrapnel in your bed.

And when the stukas dive on us

We never pause to look;

We're down our holes like rabbits in

This place they call ...?

Sometimes we go in swimming

And float about at ease

In water clear as crystal

And nice clean salty breeze.

When down comes blasted Hermann

And we've to sling our hook,

We dive clean to the bottom in

This place they call …?

I really do not think this place

Was meant for me and you;

Let's return it to the Arab

And he knows what he can do.

We'll leave this God-forsaken place

Without one backward look

We've called it lots of other names

This place they call …?

A. W. Curran (?)

Tobruk 15 September 1941

(AWM 3 DRL 3527)

Greece

We left the Dago on the run

And moved to Greece to fight the Hun,

Outnumbered there we gave them hell

Not stopping for a breathing spell.

We held the pass at Vi Vi ridge

This line of hills we could not bridge,

Machine gunned, shelled and bombed as well

The Germans could not make us quell.

Our first positions were withdrawn;

The boys were feeling tired and worn

While Jerries lying dead — three deep,

Gave others time to catch some sleep.

Grecian soldiers — not alone –

Fighting for their wives and home,

But treacherous power holding sway

Just waiting for the final day.

A high official, quite well known,

Would like to see us overthrown;

Underestimating British fervour

His hand was called in this last hour.

But now the damage has been done

And once again we had to run;

An organised retreat was planned

Though every man would rather stand.

No threat of Germans in the rear

Only bombers should we fear;

Villages and roads complain,

Machine-gunned by the diving planes.

Caught like rats on a mountain pass —

How long will this nightmare last?

A.W. Curran (?)

(AWM 3 DRL 3527)

Somewhere in Malaya

We are somewhere in Malaya, where they very seldom pay yer,

And conjecture and opinion now runs free,

For the troops grow daily thinner on what they'd like for dinner,

But we're soldiers in Malaya, by the sea.

After working hard for hours we come home to find no showers,

And no matter how the troops protest or plea,

We are told we should know better, just to go and don a sweater

Cause we're living in Malaya, by the sea.

Drains and ditches breed mosquitoes which are big enough to eat us

And with scorpions like monsters from the sea,

Add to these the snakes and lizards and the lot get in our gizzards —

Wish we'd never seen Malaya, by the sea.

Now according to the papers we are cutting fancy capers

And our life is just eternally a spree,

But to us it's quite apparent that our bright reporters haven't

Ever seen Malaya, by the sea.

When we're done with camps and bivvies and we all go back to civvies

Swapping lies and pitching yarns and feeling free,

Not one second would we wonder, if for all the blood and thunder

We'd go back to Malaya, by the sea.

So in passing, let's remember, when life's just a glowing ember,

And our name perhaps a hallowed memory,

Just despite this old ‘hard-bitten', we will find his deeds are written

In the history of Malaya, by the sea.

Cpl. C. W. Lewis

(AWM PR 00074)

Full Moon

Robed in a garment of silver splendour,

Fair and clear she walks the sky

And the troubled earth is a world beyond her

Where men may live, may love, may die...

Tonight the gods of love will waken

In a thousand hearts in her silver glow

Heart to heart the world forsaken

They walk the roads that dreamers know.

But death will ride the skies tonight

And race the wind on silver wings,

And laugh aloud in mad delight

At all the terror that he brings.

The rain of bombs on men below

The lurid fires beneath the moon

That does not care that may not know

How much she helped to cause that ruin.

Tonight along our eastern shore

Our soldiers wait and watch the sky,

And all the people tense with war

Look up and curse the moon on high.

She rides serene as the night grows late

As the planes return —

And the soldiers wait...

Ft Lt Thomas L Stewart

(AWM MSS 1250)

Faded Suits of Green

I am standing at my window, I can hear the tramp of feet,

I can hear the soldiers marching down the bush road and the street,

They are coming into vision, now they can be plainly seen,

That swinging line of figures in their faded suits of Green.

Suits that went into the dye pots — in a hurry as you know,

For the Jap was at our door step, a crafty cruel foe —

No time for fuss or finish, very little lay between

Those screaming hordes of Nippon, and those faded suits of Green.

The dye came out in patches of pale yellow, green and brown,

They were fashioned for the jungle, not for touring round the town

They were not meant for dancing, to strut in or to preen,

They were made for men of action, streaky faded suits of Green.

There were men who went to outposts, to the flies and dust and heat,

To monotony and boredom, no offensive, no retreat;

And they missed the path of glory with their mates at Alamein

They were left to guard Australia in their faded suits of Green.

On the battle fields of Papua, on the shores of Milne Bay

On the road to far Kokoda, and down Gona-Bura way,

Through the fever stricken jungles where the Nippon lurked unseen,

Into slime and slush and slaughter, went those faded suits of Green

Pressing onward, ever onward, rivers crossed and pathways strange,

Facing death, defying danger, on the Owen Stanley Range,

Up the cliffs and down the valleys, through the deep and dark ravine,

Torn and tattered, splashed with crimson, glorious faded suits of Green.

Standing, watching at my window, my thoughts wing as before

To the ricefields of Malaya, to the docks of Singapore,

To the prison camps of Nippon where our loved ones, gaunt and lean,

Weary, wait there to be rescued, by those faded suits of Green.

They are coming, captive soldiers, tho' the way be grim and hard

They will fight on to a finish, inch by inch and yard by yard,

For no suits of shining armour, worn by knights before a Queen,

Ever held such pride and honour as those faded suits of Green.

When the bells of peace are ringing as they did in days of yore,

When the hated sound of war drums shall have ceased for evermore,

When we live in love and laughter and happiness serene,

oh, australia! please remember – those faded suits of green!

Rebecca Morton

(AWM PR 87 062)

Moratai

I've left the Sunny Southern land

And sailed across the sea,

I've left behind me all the ones I love;

I've landed on a coral isle

Beneath a foreign flag,

But yet the Southern Cross still shines above,

And when the daily job is done

I lay upon my bed,

And gazing upward to the heavens bright,

I think of how those very stars

Shine on my loved one too,

And wonder if she thinks of me tonight.

Pte Jim Baker NX 139320

Moratai NEI, 1944

The Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier

You saw him in your town a-strolling down the street,

You saw him in his uniform that always looked so neat,

You heard him in the dance hall, with your hand upon his shoulder

Cursing fate and his bad luck — the Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier.

You labelled him a coward, because he did not fight,

You thought he didn't have the guts to stick up for the right,

You heard him in the bar, and if you felt a little bolder,

You didn't hesitate to say — another Chocolate Soldier

But how your song is different when war is at your door.

You rarely hear the saying ‘Chocolate Soldier' any more,

By heaven you'll thank your Maker, before you are much older,

For the man who kept the Japs away — the Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier.

You don't know how he cursed the flies, and swore at dirt and heat,

He put away the uniform that always looked so neat,

He wears a pair of ragged shorts, a shirt when it is cooler,

He puts up with pests and flies — the Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier.

He is living in a reeking tent, his rations often short,

He thinks of all the steak and eggs and the beer that once he bought,

But when the bombers fill the skies his rage begins to smoulder,

When he sees his cobbers fall and die — the Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier.

His ack-ack guns and small arms too were shields to your defence,

His body first to take the blow and if you are not too dense;

You'll take your hat off to the man, before you are much older,

The man you used to spurn and rail — another Chocolate Soldier.

Anon

AAMWS, AIF