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
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;
And if the worst should happen
We’ve a job quite man size,
Defending Aussie and Egypt
In the pillbox on the rise.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
* * *
To the A.A.S.C.
They have toiled their loads o’er the far flung roads
And the labour has been their pride
They have hauled the clip to the waiting ship
Through the streets to the waterside.
They have brought the grain from the stubbled plains
Till the silo siding was full
Through the days that were long they have loved their song
Of the engines thrust & pull.
When the gales wild lash made the branches crash
Spite of perils old & new,
Down the winding grade not a whit dismayed
Came the transport roaring through.
Through the coastal rains, over black soil plains
Through flood & dust & flame,
No matter what the odds, by all the gods,
They’d get there just the same.
Now they’ve left the roads, they have no loads
To the wharf or the outback store
For the Empire’s call has brought them all
To the days & the ways of war.
Now the engine’s song sounds stern & strong
And its theme is the common will,
For the foe of old grows overbold
And we love our freedom still.
Yet the part they played in the nation’s trade
Their motto now shall be,
Equal to the task to all that’s asked
Of the men of our ASC.
In the peaceful years they got no cheers
And they seek none now, it’s true
But this we know, where wheels can go,
They’ll get their war freights through.
They’ll haul each shell to the gates of hell
To the maw of each hungry gun,
O’er countless roads they’ll bring their loads
And the job will be well done.
Let the spotlight shine on the firing line
On the guns & the infantry
But save a cheer for the trusty Rear,
The men of our AASC.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
* * *
1941
That year it rained death like apples
It did not matter at all about the dead
For what better than death in battle,
(The sick voice said in the belly
What death better than death in battle?)
That year the wicked were strong but remember
That the time comes when the thing that you strike
Rouses itself suddenly, very terribly,
And stands staring with a terribly angry look
And says, “Why do you strike me brother? I am a man.”
One man is like another,
One strength like another strength
And the wicked shall not prosper for ever,
When the turns of history
Bring the innocent —
To Victory!
G. W. F.
(AWM PR 00526)
* * *
The Australian Volunteers
This war is just beginning,
By a man who has no love
For the lives of human beings
And the God we know above.
So to victory we’re marching,
The possessors of no fear
And throughout the world we’re known as:
The Australian volunteers.
When we left our wives and mothers
It was sorrowful, I’ll say,
And for the pain they supplied
Someone will have to pay.
That someone’s Adolf Hitler
For he’s caused them many tears,
And revenge will be the bayonets
Of the Australian Volunteers.
Our fathers fought in ’fourteen
When they made their big advance,
And they wrote their names in history
As the bravest men in France.
We’ll follow in their footsteps
Tho’ it’s after twenty years
To keep the old tradit
ion
Of the Australian volunteers.
When we return to Australia,
Victorious from the strife,
There’s many a man we left behind
Who gave his gallant life
So freedom may continue
As it has in former years,
With the Empire’s gains assisted
By the Aussie Volunteers
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
* * *
Bound’ry Riders of Tobruk
We’re riding Shank’s pony,
Round the boundry of Tobruk
And looking to the traps at night as well;
We’re rounding up all the boobies
And we have our share of luck
And now and then we yard a straying shell.
We’re used to yarding cattle
On a brumby mountain bred,
We can use the whips and spurs in proper style,
But the boundaries here are different
And the whips are Brens instead
And our spurs are made of barbed wire by the mile.
We see the Jerry rustler
As he sneaks about at night,
No doubt he is a trier, is old Fritz,
But he’s found the Boundary Rider
Ever ready for a fight
If he decides to start on a blitz.
We are gathered from the outposts
Of Australia over here
And if we chance to leave slip and rail down,
It’s just a trap for Jerry,
So you needn’t have a fear,
All you blokes that work back near the town.
Just send us up our rations,
Keep the ammo well supplied
And see we get our mail and parcels too;
We’ll route the Jerry rustler out
And tan his bloody hide
Ere we round him up and send him back again.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
* * *
Headlines
A mighty island fortress,
The guardian of the east,
An up-to-date Gibraltar,
A thousand planes at least.
“It simply cannot be taken,
’Twill stand a siege for years
We’ll hold the place for ever,
’Twill bring our foe to tears.
Our men are there in thousands,
Defences are unique.”
The Japs did not believe it –