Just Another Aussie
If he’s tall and tanned and strong
And wears a careless grin
That’s a ‘come on’, for the smarties –
He always gets them in.
And if he wants to bet you
Anything, medium, small or big,
You’ll know he is an Aussie,
Better known as Dig.
If some well-known speaker
Is to lecture on the air,
And at that time they broadcast
The hounds are chasing a hare,
And you see a fellow switch on
To the dogs, well you can twig
That he’s just another Aussie
Better known as Dig.
If the guns are roaring
And the enemy is in sight
He will plough right through the bloody lot
And ask you for a light.
For drought and dust and danger
He doesn’t care a fig,
Cause he’s just another Aussie,
Better known as Dig.
Whether it’s in Egypt
Or any place inferior,
An Aussie is an Aussie
With plenty of interior.
He’ll grin and he will bet you
With his mouth half full of cig,
And if he loses he will say:
Mahfeesh! good on you Dig!
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
Untitled
Only one more marching order
Only one more sick parade
Only one more kit inspection
And of that we’re not afraid.
When this bloody war is over
Oh! How happy we will be;
We will tell our Sergeant Major
He can go — to Werribee.
Bdr S. J. Lynch
(AWM MSS 1557)
A Day at the Office
Have you ever been in an Orderly Room
And studied the Clerk’s routine?
No! then come along to the 48th,
Here is the opening scene:
It’s situated near a stream
A number of miles from Lae,
It’s not exactly an artist’s dream
But here we’ll stage the play.
Have you ever seen an aviary
With a gable roof on top?
Yes? We’ll nail a sign ‘A Office’ up
And that’s where we play shop.
The time is almost nine o’clock
The Sarge knows what to expect,
The Adj walks in with piles of bumph,
And the usual “type this next”.
The sun climbs up in the heavens,
The minutes go fleeting on,
The little Sergeant heaves a sigh
And yells for Tonk and Don.
Faint murmurings are heard nearby
Then voices speak without,
And in they walk those clerical guys
With a “what’s all the panic about?”
Don looks spruce with his whiskers off,
Every day it’s considered too cruel,
Grizzles our Tonk with an injured air
“Why Don, you’ve broken the rule!”
Down they squat as they heave a sigh,
Says Don “it’s time for a smoke.”
They roll their fags with a studied grace,
And Tonk starts to crack a joke
The Sergeant gives a disgusted look
For the joke is really taboo,
He rummages around the various files
And finds them something to do.
An oath from Tonk as his screwdriver prods
Into the back of the old machine,
As he backs the spacer and thumps the bar
And tinkers with parts unseen.
Don sets to work with the roll on his knees,
And marches men in and out,
He checks the strengths of Company rolls
And his pen starts scratching about.
When Saturday dawns so bright and fair
There are Field Returns to do;
The Sgt struggles with figures of men
And thinks them all bally-hoo.
Work proceeds at a steady pace
Till the typewriter seems to be stuck;
The Sgt peers o’er the typist’s shoulder
And finds he has overstruck.
He says to Tonk “Don’t spare the rubber,”,
ays Tonk “Looks good paper to me.”
But at him is thrown an eraser,
For the Returns the Old Man must see.
Time goes on the work eases off,
Some letters the boys start to pen.
Don writes some pages to Mother
While Tonk ear bashes to Gwen.
They say to the Sarge about tea time
“You’ve worked us to death all day,
You can pull your silly-gig head in,
We’re giving the game away!”
And so the curtain closes,
On the overworked! happy! three!
Each day is the same in the Orderly Room —
Come again some time and see.
GB
The Ninth Div Grand Final
’Twas the day of the football premiership
The Ninth Div final grand
When the 48th met the Cavalry
Way up on the Tablelands.
The Tricolours were the favourites
With better form as a guide,
Although the gallant Blue and Whites
Are a never-beaten side.
And they proved it so, at the epic end
Of a game that will never die
When they won the match with a well-earned goal
Ere the final bell rang nigh.
From the start it looked the cavalry
Would take the ridge hands down,
For playing in a flawless style
They put the Blues to ground.
High marking safe and brilliantly
To dominate the air
With driving kicks, from end to end
They triumphed everywhere.
For though the 48th strove hard
Their run to grimly stay,
They could not match the brilliance of
The Cav’s grand open play.
Goal after goal they rattled on:
Again, and yet again,
The ‘Troopers’ scored to shade the Blues,
Who battled on in vain.
(Or so did seem) till came half time
When of that break in need
The ‘4-bar-8s’ were six goals down
Oh! what a heartbreak lead.
But few have known just really when
The 48th were beat,
For when their chance looks at its worst
They’re hardest to defeat.
And once again it proved this day
For fighting grimly back
The Blue and Whites came back to win
Upon a hopeless track.
Right through to ‘lemons’ hard they held
The dashing Cavalry
As inch by inch they slowly gained
With dour tenacity.
Yea (spite of all) at ‘lemons’ still
The Cav by four goals led,
Full well the ‘4-bar-8’ men knew
The task which lay ahead.
So when the final term commenced
Straight from the starting bell
The Blues went in to do or die
And played the game like hell.
Though hard the rattled Tricolours
Tried everything they knew
To stem the tide; relentlessly
Surged on the ‘White and Blue’.
Time after time into attack
With telling drives they came,
And paralysed the Cav’s defence
By closing up the game.
With deadly kicking, true but sure,
Their score crept upwards slow –
Three points behind, a goal to win —
Five minutes left to go!
Then ere the bell rings Smithy marks
A few yards out of goals,
“I hope he gets it!” “May he miss!”
Implore some thousand souls.
As midst a silence deathly still,
His screw-punt neatly spun
Between the sticks: comes cheering shrill –
The 48th had won!
Anon
Much Ado About Nothing
The 48th is in disgrace for robbing an Itie nob:
Some rascal snatched a Colonel’s watch, worth about two bob.
It surely was an awful deed; in the Army it’s just not done,
And I suppose until they find it, no victory can be won.
They’ve looked in all the pawn shops from Alex to Aleppo
But not a sign can anyone find of that imitation ‘Sheppo’.
Kit inspections have been held, they’ve questioned every man,
Tried various ways to dig it up, but b — d if they can.
To find Scirrocco’s timepiece is more important than the front
All the best brains in the Army are joining in the hunt.
They’re trying hard to find it and I’ve a strong suspicion
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that was Churchill’s mission.
The search goes on from day to day; morning, noon and night,
But seems the old wop’s done it in — the watch has gone alright.
Perhaps some joker wogged it and went out on the shicker
And that would be the proper thing to do with that old ticker.
For I’ll tell you my opinion of all this bloody rot,
They could stop this cranky racket if that Itie mug was shot:
For I don’t suppose they questioned him or looked in his valise
For the food those Dago b — s took from starving kids in Greece.
I don’t suppose they asked him, who took our comrades’ lives,
Took away those good Australians leaving sorrowing kids and wives.
No, they’ll see that he is comfortable and treat him like a toff,
While the people home are paying us to kill the b — s off.
Anon
Army Pay
I’m but a bloomin’ private,
One of the simple kind,
It’s not that I’m a moaner,
But there’s something on my mind;
Even if you think me thankless,
I still must have my say,
I find that I am always broke
With a dollar for my pay.
It’s not that I am sorry
That I joined to win this war;
My pocket is always empty,
I’d like a little more.
Nearly all Australian soldiers
Have their pint of beer each day,
I find I can’t afford it
On my paltry army pay.
Perhaps you’ll say I knew it
When I volunteered to join,
And I only have myself to blame
For any lack of coin;
And to be quite truthful,
I don’t regret the day
That I signed on the dotted line
To work for army pay.
The way I use the rifle
Causes quite a fuss,
They say I must be cross-eyed
And I couldn’t hit a bus;
My shots all miss the target,
From the bull they’re far away,
But I line up with the marksmen
For my paltry army pay.
When we have a route march
My feet both ache and pain,
To make conditions perfect
It always starts to rain.
The pack gets very heavy
And makes my shoulders sway,
I stagger back exhausted
To get my paltry pay.
I look back with amusement,
When I, a raw recruit,
Marched around in circles
In a brand new khaki suit.
Although those days are distant
And I have sailed away,
My income hasn’t altered —
I’m on the same old pay.
Raymond John Colenso
(AWM PR 00689)
Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
We knew he was a wrong ’un when he got on to the ship,
For he had no dignity at all and gave us all the pip
When he handed out our telegrams like an awful office boy,
And by his manner acted as if he gave each child a toy.
Then he started on the tannoy. God! How I hate his voice
“Pay attention everybody.” He’d be hung by public choice
When he speaks his futile rubbish and we laugh behind our hand,
As it’s only through senility he got his scarlet band.
His idea of being a Commandant is to keep things hush, the drip,
As he would be quite depressed if we were happy on the trip.
He only says, “You can’t do this,” he never says you can,
Which is only just what every girl used once to say to man.
He said “No leave at Freetown,” which didn’t matter much,
But the same thing said at Capetown had quite a different touch.
“There is danger on the small boats, as the weather is so rough.”
But when it calmed next morning the airmen called his bluff.
Those that hadn’t left the night before to buy things for their wife
Took the waterboat for Capetown to have some fun and strife;
The Old Boy nearly had a fit and ‘Staff’ warned all concerned
That any sailor who broke ship would quickly be interned.
But this only caused more laughter and decided all the boys
To go and see the Capetown Folk and taste the city’s joys;
Even Royal Naval Sailors, who seldom flout the law,
Joined the happy throng in hundreds and with cheers pulled for the shore.
So the Navy still can take it, leave I mean, not tyrant stuff,
And their thumbs went to their nostrils at the Commandant’s cheap bluff;
In the meantime the old blighter, who found he had no power,
Crept in shame into his cabin, where he moaned for hour on hour.
So a happy trip was stonkered by a blurry bureaucrat
Just a silly senile fellow, who will get a bowler hat,
For we’ve warned the old War Office and Australia’s got the tip
That no Aussie troops will travel with this CO on a ship.
If Captain Bligh was Commandant, we’d have known just where we stood,
But now we just get mucked about and know nothing that we should;
We’ll soon forget because of all the fun we’ve had together,
So ‘Here’s to’ home and those we love in sunny Aussie weather.
Anon
(AWM PR 83 198)
“If”… A Version for Land Girls
(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling and in appreciation of England’s Land Army.
If you can keep your feet when snow still lingers
And paths are skating rinks of solid rain;
If you can pick wet sprouts with frozen fingers
And fill two trugs, unheedful of the pain;
If you can force each tired and aching sinew
To lift you from your warm and cosy bed
And sally forth without a morsel in you
To misty mangled field or gloomy shed;
If, with a cheerful face and lips unpouting
You can dig potatoes from ice-cold mud;
If you can call until you’re hoarse with shouting
For cows you thought were calmly chewing cud
And track them down at last in someone’s garden,
Employed in crushing beetroots in the ground,
Then humbly beg the hostile owners pardon
And drive them home without an angry sound;
If, when you’re scything grass, you find there lying
Sickles, shears and other worn out tools,
Things that chip your scythe and send you flying,
Left there by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Yet never lose your patience for a minute or
Though your sun-baked head is in a whirl —
Yours is the earth (and the insects in it)
And … what is more … you’ll be a saint, my girl.
Anon
(AWM PR 84 286)
The Lass’s Lament
No use looking bloody coy,
Can’t even catch a bloody boy,
Life is robbed of bloody joy,
Oh bloody, bloody. bloody!
When this bloody war is won,
Perhaps we’ll get some bloody fun,
Been living like a bloody nun,
Oh bloody, bloody, bloody!
Tired of talking to bloody ladies,
Of what the latest bloody shade is,
They can go to bloody Hades,
Oh bloody, bloody, bloody!
Waiting round for bloody letters,
Knitting piles of bloody sweaters,
Better if the Nazis get us,
Oh bloody, bloody, bloody!
Anon
My Old Brown Hat
It hasn’t got roller brim, it shows no shiny nap,
It sports no fancy ribbons, just a weather beaten strap;
It never swanked around the block to give the girls a treat
It’s not the kind of nifty lid they’d stand in Collins Street;
It’s nothing like the jumping jack you wear with evening dress,
It was never foaled by Woodrow, and it never heard of tress;
You wouldn’t call it just the juicy onion for the play,
Nor the thing to hook a clue with on the bridge on Henley Day;
It would be a hellish compliment to call it homely brown,
But it’s one side’s cocked up handsome when it isn’t hanging down;
It has served through forty climates up from Collingwood to Leith,
And it fits the frosty dial that is grinning underneath
It’s stopped a brace of bullets (it has also missed a few)
It’s my dingy, dinkum cobber, for I’ve never liked them new,
So cut it out, and never think a bloke has got a rat,
When he says “I love you like I do my old brown hat”.
We was hell and all in Cairo, where our notions of the law
Was mostly wrote with knuckles on the population’s jaw;
And coming up one evening — there were three of us — and gay,
I bumped a filthy nigger in a dirty alleyway;
He slung opinions round him with a shocking lack of tone,
So I handed him a hefty one across the dizzy bone.
He pulled a knife and yelled and then, with twenty seconds gone,
The father and mother of a blooming mix was on,
We was back to wall and dicky till some cobbers took a share,
And the sight of our old brown brims was the thing that brought them there;
And only for me twisting as the blow came humming down,
For this scar upon my shoulder I’d have worn an angel’s crown;
I was half an inch from heaven — twig the cut upon the brim —
So I’ll keep it, a memento, till I sing my parting hymn,
Till the left of time has feinted and the right has biffed me flat,
And for a halo afterwards, my old brown hat.
I took it out to Anzac, where I duly humped it from,
And I wore it for a diadem when fluttering to the Somme;
We found a front line sector, and we hadn’t hardly come,
When Fritzie showed a sign which read ‘Australians Welcome Home’;
We weren’t out to disappoint, we had a sense of fair,
We were grateful for the welcome, and we handed back a share;
We deal him good and plenty, and I think he understands,
There’s other uses for your dooks apart from shaking hands;
For we served Australian Cocktail (and the Cocktail had a kick)
They were out for dinge, and dicken but they didn’t get a stick,
The papers called us Titans (and it’s crook to hear the same)
But the strange hats we wore, ’twas them that made the name;
But I’m tipping Fritz’s talent, till the setting of the sun,
Will recall our fruity language and the nasty things we done,
When we hooked them on the earhole, and we biffed them on the slat,
Oh, they won’t forget their intro to the my old brown hat.
When a bloke has had a blighty and he’s fit to get about,
And a hint of London sunshine brings the London titters out;
The first thing that he’ll notice, and the second too, perhaps,
Is the way the glad eye hovers on us khaki-clobbered chaps,
For they’ve seen it in the papers (which its name’s not truthful James)
That we’re Galahads and Heroes, and a hundred other names,
And it’s no use disclaiming, for the paper blokes in town,
They’ve made our reputation, and we’ll have to live it down;
A Yorkshire or a Hampshire, or a baggy boy in blue,
They’re good and all to catch a skirt, and most of them have two;
But the thing that snares the optic of the gushing feminine,
It’s not the haughty Guardsman with a picket up his spine,
Or it’s not the budding Captain with his little toothbrush mo,
And I’ve wondered hard and often, you can search me if I know,
If the thing that bowls them gently and that takes them off the bat,
Is the lanky brown Australian in his old brown hat.
The service cap is handy when a chap is going flash
And the helmet’s most convenient when you’re scoffing soup or hash;
But my dinkum shady brimmer, you can take your blooming oath,
Is worth a ton of either, or a paddock full of both;
Its tint may strike you silly, and its outline make you laugh,
It’s not a chic confection or a flaming photograph,
Its hang would send you pippy, and its shape would make you sore;
There’s a hole or two about it, which I’ve hinted at before,
But it kept the sun at Mena off my dainty little head,
It has heard my prayers for guidance, and other things I’ve said,
It has stood me for a pillow when I laid me down to sleep,
When the earth was mostly water and the mud was four feet deep;
And I think perhaps this reason makes us like them as we do,
They’re what blokes pick us out by, and they breathe of home and you,
Oh, home that makes me love you, and my heart goes pit-a-pat,
How you’ll greet me, when you meet me, in my old brown hat.
Anon
(AWM PR 91 104)
The Old Tin Hat
Smart in spats is Tommy Atkins
His suit of khaki dressed,
On the Strand or Piccadilly
He can swank it with the rest.
But when out on shell-swept Flanders
Where bullets ping and spat
You will find each fighting soldier
Wears an old tin hat.
In the days of courtly gallants
When fair chivalry held sway,
Stately knights to win fair ladies
Oft would meet in open fray.
But in trench, shell-hole or dugout
Where nowadays our men lie flat,
You will find each gallant hero
Wears an old tin hat.
Fighting Mac arrayed in kilties
And tam-o’-shanter cap
To the sound of swirling bagpipes
Would fight with vim and snap.
But in these days of ‘whizz-bangs’,
Five-point-nine and things like that,
You will find each Jock and Sandy
Wears an old tin hat.
From the land of wattle blossom
Waratah and Kangaroo,
Bill and Jim with rousing cooee
Come sailing across the blue.
He is no parade ground soldier
And not half a diplomat,
But he looks a dinkum Digger
In his old tin hat.
Uncle Sam has lots of soldiers
(And gee whizz they are some guys)
To the strains of ‘Yankee Doodle’
They have marched where victory lies,
With Old Glory o’er them flying
Britain’s foes they now combat,
And every Yankee soldier
Wears an old tin hat.
When the roll is called up yonder
And the soldier says goodbye,
Leaving good old ‘Terra Firma’
For the mansion in the skies,
When he meets old St Peter
Who is waiting on the mat
He may say when asked the password —
Why! My old tin hat!
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
The Song of the Gremlins
When you’re seven miles up in the heavens
It’s a hell of a lonely spot
And it’s fifteen degrees below zero
Which isn’t so very hot,
It’s then you see the Gremlins
Green, gamboge and gold,
Male, female and neuter,
Gremlins both young and old;
White ones will waggle your wing-tips,
Male ones will muddle your maps,
Green ones will guzzle your glycol,
And females will flutter your flaps,
They’ll bind you and they’ll break you and they’ll batter
And break through your aileron wires,
And as you orbit to pancake
Stick hot toasting forks in your tyres.
Chaplain D. Trathen
(AWM PR 00218)
Thanks for the Memory
(With apologies to the writer of the song of that name)
Thanks for the memory
Of Wallgrove’s canvas camp,
of days in mud and damp,
And sneaking in at two to find some cow has pinched your lamp.
How lovely it was.
Thanks for the memory
Of Ingleburn and huts,
the Unit now has guts,
When every spare hour found us picking up matches and butts.
I thank you so much.
Many a march in the moonlight,
Crawling to Camp about midnight,
An MO’s parade, p’raps a blue-light,
A night in town, without a brown,
So thanks for the memory
When Bathurst was in reach,
a night with some sweet peach,
Then twenty in a taxi but still charged a deener each.
I thank you so much.
Thanks for memory,
Of two-up games on board,
till ‘Black-Out’ whistles roared,
Of getting drunk on two bob, if two bob we could afford.
How lovely it was.
Thanks for the memory
Of lovely tropic moons,
of bully-beef and prunes,
And strolling round the prom deck in our tropic pantaloons.
I thank you so much.
Then after two weeks water
And thoughts of a cow-cocky’s daughter,
I shouldered my gear like a porter
And tramped with my load
A mile upon the road,
And thanks for the memory
Of breakfast on the train,
a route march in the rain —
But now the trip’s a memory and we’re back at work again
So thank you, so much.
‘Pic’
(AWM PR 00074)
Untitled
(To the tune:- Road to Gundagai)
There’s a tent in the grass
That you’ll always have to pass
Along the road to the 116,
Where the RPs are looking,
To see what there is cooking
Around the AAMWS Lines.
They’d like to catch us creeping
Up through the field,
But we know our onions
And keep well concealed,
So RP if you do ever catch up with me,
I’ll give you the DFC.
There were times when you dozed
And we crept right past your nose,
So early in the morn,
After driving in staff cars
And riding in Jeeps,
Boy, if you’d seen us,
How you would weep,
’Cause you’d failed to report
All the things that you ought,
Along the road to the 116.
Now RP don’t you see
That it’s best that we go free
To wander as we please.
You’ll never catch us,
Try as you may,
For we’ve been old soldiers
For more than a day
So go back to your bed.
And pull in your bloomin’ head,
Along the road to the 116!
(P.S. The RP said when he caught us he would write the final verse. It was never written!)
Written by nurses at 116 AGH Cairns
(AWM PR 88 019)
The VAD’s ‘If’
If you can work all day without your make up,
Your snappy hair-do hidden ’neath your veil;
If you can serve up umpteen dozen dinners
Then wait on Matron without turning pale;
If you can wash the everlasting dishes
And then turn round and wash the trolley too.
And when your mess jobs are all finished
Polish up your hut until it shines like new;
If you can track down elusive orderlies,
And make them help you, when they’d rather shirk;
If you can run on countless errands for the Sister,
And still be up to date with all your work;
If you can make the orange drinks and egg-flips,
About the diets knowing all there is to tell,
And get the MO’s morning tea, and heat the poultice.
And maybe sponge a man or two as well;
If you can take a ‘ticking off’ from Matron
And realize she doesn’t mean it — much!
If you can bear to see your rec leave vanish,
When you thought you had it safely in your clutch;
If you can take the trials and tribulations,
The good times and the bad, all in your stride;
If you can do all this and keep good tempered,
Then you’re not a bloomin’ VAD
But a saint who hasn’t died!
From Ward 5, 2/12th AGH Warwick
Anon
(AWM PR 88 019)
Only Wait Until You’re Married
My appearance before you may seem rather strange,
I’ve just come over here by way of exchange
With words of advice and good council to tell,
Likewise a warning and caution as well.
I laugh when I hear young blokes talk of their girl
With eyes bright as diamonds and teeth white as pearls,
Who think they are bliss with smiling so free
But just wait till you’re married and then you’ll see.
Chorus: It’s only wait till you’re married my boys,
It’s only wait till you’re married my boys,
You single young men who go out on the spree
Just wait till you’re married, and then you’ll see.
There is my wife’s mother and mine can’t hit it at all,
Whenever they meet there is a terrible ball,
It’s my daughter a duke or earl might of won
Had she never met that young rascal your son.
Then the old one replies as a mother should do
They would get on alright if it were not for you,
Hard words come to blows and it ends in a fight
And the jolly old pair are locked up for the night.
Your joy is no more ended you rise in the morning
The nurse brings you word that the first boy is born;
But your mouth it suddenly has a decline
When your family increases from six to nine.
Now young ladies I hope you won’t think me unkind,
If you think it’s so bliss to have three on each knee –
Just wait until you are married and then you will see.
C. T. Mealing
14 October 1900
(AWM PR 00752)
The Engineers’ Eclipse
or ‘The Downfall of the Duke’
Australia’s Corps of Engineers
Throughout the world have known no peers,
Brave men of brawn and skill
They’ve proved their worth in desert sands,
In Greece’s snows, and with bare hands
They conquered Syrian hill.
The scene has changed and now they’re seen
In slimy swamp and jungle green
On Bougainvillean shore;
They’ve mastered bog and muddy ridge
With jeep, bulldozer road and bridge
A great and gallant Corps!
But came the long awaited day
Our Duke of Gloucester came to stay
A week with us at base
Then with their true magician’s touch
The Engineers — from nothing much —
Soon housed his Royal Grace.
A regal bungalow abode
With mod cons a la jungle mode
No purist would rebuke,
Our Engineers gave of their best
To bless with peaceful perfect rest
His Grace, the Royal Duke.
And since all dukes and kings so high
Are cursed with bowels like you and I
The urgent need was seen
To build apart, alone, unsung,
Where modest vine and creeper hung,
The Duke’s own bush latrine.
The Royal stomach gripped with pain
From dip and flip of wind-tossed plane
Soon made its message known,
And so behold his Royal Grace
With bulging eye and purpling face
Upon his jungle throne.
But, sad the tale, those Engineers
Had dabbled in excessive beers
The day they built this nest,
And dazed with much black-market grog
They failed to put each plank and log
To regulation test.
And so, as Gloucester strained amain,
Those timbers, undermined with rain,
Gave way with gleeful rush;
The Duke performed a backward bow
And to the startled ducal brow
Was dealt a Royal Flush.
The Brigadier looked swords of death,
The CRE drew frightened breath,
The Sapper Sergeant cried;
The Duke called for his private plane,
Flew off in constipated pain,
John Curtin groaned and died.
Which only goes to prove that though
Our Engineers beat rain and snow,
Beat sand and mountain pass,
No Engineer’s plebeian brain
Could ever hope to gauge the strain
And the weight of the Royal —.
‘Black Bob’
Lt. A. L. O’Neill (?)
Bougainville
(AWM MSS 1328)
Good Old Number Nine
If your head is aching and your bones are sore,
And a cough tears your chest like a cross-cut saw.
P’raps it’s bronchitis, consumption or gout,
Lumbago, neuritis — you’re ill without doubt.
It may be the stomach, liver or flu,
The kidneys, digestion, heart trouble too;
A chill or a cold may have you in grip,
A touch of asthma or just the plain ‘pip’.
A corn or a bunion may give you much pain,
It may be neuralgia or toothache again;
Rheumatics, anaemia or peritonitis,
Or only just common or garden tireditis.
Whatever your complaint, pray don’t lose your head,
He cannot cure that, or a limb you have shed,
But it you have one of the aforementioned ills
The MO will cure you with Number Nine pills.
Anon
A Soldier’s Dream
He grabs me by my slender neck,
I could not call or scream,
He dragged me to his darkened tent
Where he could not be seen.
He took me from my flimsy wrap
And gazed upon my form,
I was so scared, so cold, so damp,
And he so delightfully warm.
His fevered lips he pressed on mine,
I gave him every drop,
He took from me my very soul,
I could not make him stop.
He made me what I am today,
That’s why you find me here:
A broken bottle thrown away,
That once was full of beer.
Anon
The Digger
I’ve dug holes fair dinkum, and dug them for fun,
I’ve dug them at night and beneath blazing sun.
I’ve dug little holes to protect infantry,
And awfully big ones for the blooming OC.
And holes for the Ack Ack, and holes for their shells,
And holes for the hygiene to bury their smells.
And holes around tents in case Stukas are seen,
And farther away for the Section latrine.
And the greatest event of my lifetime will be
When someone is detailed to dig one for me.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
The Singin’ Diggers
Now, I’ve bin nuts on poetry since I was just a kid,
The books o’ verse I’ve bought ’ave corst me many a ’ard earned quid.
I’ve read The Man from Snowy an’ ol’ Clancy an’ the rest,
An’ Kendal, Lawson, Gordon. But of all of ’em the best
In my ’umble estimation (you might ‘ave a different pick)
In a book I read by Dennis, called The Moods of Ginger Mick.
For Mick was jest a Digger with a dial ’ard as oak,
An’ ’e writes home to ’is cobber — ’oo’s the Sentimental Bloke —
An’ tells ’im ’ow the Aussies sang on far Gallipoli,
An’ socked it into Abdul to the toon of Nancy Lee.
‘e tells ’im ’ow another mob, ’oo looked done-in for fair
When they stopped a damn torpedo, sang Australia Will Be There
An’ bein’ jest an Aussie kid, I sorter felt a thrill
To read such tales of glory, in these notes from Mick to Bill.
An’ ’struth! I’m proud to think I ’ad a brother over there
’e couldn’t sing for putty, but I bet ’e done ’is share
Of serenadin’ Johnny Turk, an’ later on ol’ Fritz,
With snatches from the music ’all an’ all the latest ’its.
Time mooches on. Our country now is in another blue,
An’ this time I’m amongst the boys, for I’m a Digger, too.
I can see the same ol’ spirit in the AIF today
That kept the Anzacs singin’ in the thickest of the fray.
They still strike up a chorus, with a disregard for [tune]
As their fathers an’ their brothers did on Sari’s sandy dune.
Their songs may be more modern, an’ they like a bit o’ swing,
But when yer come to think of it, it ain’t the songs you sing,
It’s ’ow yer put yer ’eart in’ it an’ beef a chorus out.
Wot lets the ’ole creation know the Aussies is about
It keeps yer feelin’ perky in a way that music ’as.
They sung in front of Bardia, their spirits soarin’ ’igh
We’re off to see the Wizard an’ The Road to Gundagai
They charged across the desert with their voices goin’ strong
An’ wielded bloody bay’nets to the rhythm of a song.
While the tanks all danced a rhumba, an’ the Brens played Tiger Rag
The Ities thought they’d all gorn mad, an’ struck their bloomin’ flag.
They chucked it in by thousands an’ the boys jest roped ’em up.
An’ marched ’em orf to compounds to the toon of Tippy Tin,
An’ when they’d pass a brass ’at they would slow down to a crawl,
An’ serenade the blighter with a bar of Bless ‘em all;
While blokes with bandaged ’eads an’ arms was trudgin’ to Base.,
Singin’ Back to Yarrawonga with a grin on every face.
From Solum to Benghazi, through the ’eat an’ dust an’ sand,
Them Aussie voices warbled fit to beat the flamin’ band.
Then orf to Greece they shipped ’em jest to keep a date with Fritz,
An’ though they copped it solid, in the thickest of the blitz
Yer’d ’ear some buddin’ tenor, with ’is top notes all astray,
Sing about some yeller sheila on The Road to Mandalay.
An’ later on while dodgin’ flamin’ paratroops in Crete
They could always raise a song when they could ’ardly raise their feet.
In Java an’ Malaya, too, on stinkin’ jungle trails,
They sang the same ol’ songs they’d sung in sunny New South Wales.
The Jap thought they was troppo ’e could never understand
That singin’ was a part of life in that fair southern land,
But ’e ’ad a narsty feelin’ tricklin’ down ’is yeller back
When ’e ’eard the same songs echo cross the Owen Stanley Track,
Accompanied by ’and-grenades an’ Bren an’ Tommy guns,
An’ rendered by the blokes ’oo’d learnt their job while fightin’ ’Uns
An’ I’m game to take a bet that in another year or so
They’ll be singin’ Waltzing Matilda through the streets of Tokyo.
Sapper Les Porter
A Funny Lot, the Poms
I went, at first, to Pommyland, to find out about my roots,
To see where mum was born and why my gran wore boots,
I found the place alright, and met a few who knew the family,
And a barber who ‘used to cut their hair’ but they sailed in 1911,
he was born in ’23.
They said I had an accent, and possibly, I have,
but at least they understand me,
Travelling ’round this ancient isle I found a dozen accents
as I sought my family tree,
I asked a bloke directions an’ when he spoke I burst into a giggle,
’Twas like the comedians and I laughed so much I caused myself to wriggle.
I went to visit ‘The Downs’ I’d heard so much about and down the hill I went,
I know about topography so ’twas the obvious thing to do,
and I searched ’til I was nearly spent,
Enquiring of a bloke I met, he looked at me amazed,
“Down here’s the ‘High street’, mate, the high ground is ‘The Downs’.”
I won’t tell you what I thought, talk about ‘Down Under’,
but it’s like that in all the towns.
Have you walked upon an English beach of pebbles and felt the ripples
’round your toes?
It makes you pine for a decent wave
and sunshine where the blustery southerly blows,
Poms sit in deckchairs, just gazing out to sea and saying “Ain’t it grand!”
For the sun came out today,
raised umbrellas on a beach is common in this land.
They eat a lot of funny food,
The Poms like offal and boiled eggs rolled up in pork,
There’s lots of lard, kippers, an’ cold pork pies upon the list,
but you have to use a fork,
There’s cheese found in a toothpaste tube and ‘fresh’
but you have to shoo the flies,
I found a baked bean pizza, and custard in a tin,
there’s no luxury the Pom himself denies.
The Pom’s home is his castle,
there’s lots of them around, and they’ve all got bloody stairs,
I’ve been to Warwick ’n Edinburgh too, I’m photographing them in pairs,
I’m fitter now, have viewed a lot of history, and I thought it was all mythology;
I looked around for modern bits, and found some, but they present it with apology.
Their vehicles are something to behold, ‘three-legged cars’
and ‘Rollers’ are often side by side,
While red buses and London cabs move tourists ’round with pride,
To see Harrods (the Arab Department store), Big Ben,
‘The Palace’ and much more,
It’s worth a trip to Pommyland to take all this stuff in, tho ’tis a distant shore.
They drive on roads called ‘M’ and ‘A’ with lots of funny digits,
Their roundabouts are overgrown, cut your visibility, and give you quite the fidgets,
You hurtle round and find a lot of exits,
no time to read the signs, so you have to take a punt,
Most times you lose, so you see a lot of country,
it tests your sense of humour and often makes you grunt.
Yeah! They’re a funny lot, the Poms, they lose a game and accept it with a grin,
But I’ve seen ’em come from way behind when
chips were down and end up with a win,
A funny lot they may be but we respect their grand achievements,
For qualities that they display are examples to all aspiring governments.
They’ve fine-tuned the ceremonial, which adds colour to their feats,
And with pomp and splendour they captivate the world, ’tis better than with fleets,
A funny lot they may be and at times a bit peculiar,
But a portion of my pride, it comes from there, so it makes me feel particular.
Bill Phillips
1997
Farewelling Ben
There are many great days full of honour and glory
Described in our national music and story,
Days of high courage and nights of endeavour
Their memory is cherished and will be forever;
But the greatest appear insignificant when
We remember the night we said goodbye to Ben.
Hec’s on the bar counter, coont-cap on head,
Leading attempts to awaken the dead,
Bunny’s eyes sticking out nastily glazed,
Visitors standing round frankly amazed,
Even Joe Courtnay let down his hair when
We had a few drinks saying goodbye to Ben.
Macinnis whose voice is the flapper’s delight
Sang several lewd songs and then Silent Night,
Rod Campbell for once got a little bit ripe
Eating asparagus while smoking his pipe,
Even the president lost balance when
He sank sixteen gins while farewelling Ben.
Ron Wade showed a wonderfully wide repetoire
Of songs that could only be sung in a bar,
Shamus McKinlay had only a few
And then went away with something to do,
All the wise virgins sneaked home about ten
Just when we started farewelling Ben.
The wild Colonel Q and his henchman the Scot
Found a jugful of gin and demolished the lot,
Bunny with eyes full of visions all starry
Only smiled when they poured gin on his Safari,
Now none of the three knows what night it was when
We foregathered quietly to say farewell to Ben.
At midnight the G Staff got into its stride,
The gin kept Tom Williams a long time outside
Leaning against a palm risking the nuts
Wondering what had got into his guts
The SD bloke showed his wide knowledge of men
By not staying long saying goodbye to Ben,
The medical men with their knowledge of drugs
Mixed up their drinks and behaved like three thugs
Jim English, Bill Morrow and sanitary cook,
Drank a whole lot of potions which aren’t in the book,
It’s a blessing that Charles Littlejohn wasn’t there then
On that night that his comrades were farewelling Ben.
Donald McKenzie climbed up on a rafter
Protesting that birds eggs were what he was after.
As full as a goog, he didn’t last long
But fell on the floor and then burst into song;
He finished up talking to pigs in a pen
Just as we got round to farewelling Ben.
To speak of the others, I have no intention —
The things they did are too crude to mention.
Bas Finlay for instance with never a care
Goose-stepped the bottom right out of a chair,
Still, Murie will issue another one when
He knows it was broken farewelling Ben.
Jack Davis bunked off when a phone call came through
Demanding that Oscar see DA and Q.
The innocent writer was summoned along
To help Oscar prove we’d done nothing wrong
But the DA and Q soon forgave us all when
We told him we’d only been farewelling Ben.
Like sharpening knives with an old rusty file
Was the voice of young Redpath after a while,
Loading the choruses all on one note
Stopping each minute to gargle his throat,
Only Denvil outsang him, the brogue from the glen
Rose o’er the rumpus we kicked up for Ben.
There was drinking and singing and telling of jokes,
Spontaneous humour from all of the blokes,
Acrobatics and dancing and acting the fool,
While the floor of the mess was more like a pool;
Only one thing was missing that lovely night when
We bade him goodbye — there was no sign of Ben
Anon
(AWM PR 00250)
AEME Lament
This is a tale from the DME
And a tale that is passing odd,
It tells of the ways of a wondrous plan,
A method of gauging the toil of man,
And they call it ‘prog’ and ‘prod’.
The role of workshops through years of war,
It was found with extreme regret,
Had never been truly understood
That the whole damn scheme was no damn good
And the whole set-up was wet,
The lack of planning was most to blame —
That and the lacking of charts
Which plot the course of man and hours,
Rooting the lot to extravagant powers
And listing ephemeral parts.
In early days at the start of it
The scheme was extremely crude
The work was recorded in primitive ways
Completed and out in a matter of days
And only the Wops were rude.
Later the Corps grew big and strong
And found to its great distress
The efficiency factor expressed as “y”
Of the output, cubed by the root of pi
Was five point two, or less.
Most of the keenest brains were set
To produce a suitable plot
For tracing the downward curve and then
Dividing it all by the number of men
With a constant for the lot.
Now that this hard fought fight is won
With the help of great reforms,
The forces of reasoning now prevail
By the use of graphs and sliding scale
And elaborate army forms.
Formulas now exist to find
All manner of cryptic things,
From the power percent of a driver mech
And the love life lost by a storeman tech
To the wear of piston rings.
Gone are the days of the Laissez Faire
When merely work was done,
Everything now is just compiled
Neatly bound and elaborately filed
And stored by the cubic ton.
Alas comes looming the five-year-plan,
And this may be a blow,
As some of the army of planning coves
And God only knows they come in droves
Will surely and sadly go.
And they’ll tell the tale from the DME
The tale that was passing odd.
They’ll speak of the ways of the wondrous plan
The method of gauging the toil of man
“Mafeesh”, they’ll say. “Thank God!”
Maj W P Fooks (?)
(AWM PR 00250)
In The Workshop.
We’re busy men within this shop,
We have no time to spare,
So if you want to talk or lounge,
Just kindly go elsewhere.
NX139320 Pte Jim Baker
116 Aust Gen Trans Company
Marrickville, 31 August1942
Untitled
And if we wish to see the land,
As tourists we must,
No need to move around at all
It comes to us in dust.
So in the course of half a day
We see a continent —
No wonder Moses went away
With the arse of his trousers rent.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
Dingo Joe’s Luck
Dingo Joe would wax loquacious,
When for beer he used to spar,
And he told this tale one evening
To the crowd in Cronin’s bar:
I was way up in the desert,
Chasing Lasseter’s lost reef
And had lived for months on damper
And a bit of bully beef.
I was trampin’ into Darwin
When the thort occurred to me
That I’d give a bit to sample
A refreshin’ cup of tea;
Now don’t larf — though wishful thinking
Sometimes gets you blokes down here,
It is useless in the desert
Where you’re miles & miles from beer.
So I thort I’d boil my billy
But it weren’t any good
You could search the blooming landscape
And not find a stick of wood.
Even camel dung, the standby
Of the traveller up there,
Was as scarce as angels’ visits —
All a bloke could do was swear.
Some well-chosen words I uttered
W’en a brainwave seemed to come
An’ I grab my old black billy
An’ searches in me ‘drum’,
For me bit of tea & sugar,
For some grass went stretchin’ back
On a narrow strip wat looked like
A deserted camel track.
So I fishes out me matches
An’ I sets that grass ablaze
W’ile a north wind pushed it forward
Did it go? Oh, spare me days!
With me billy held above it,
O’er the desert sands I sped,
Both me eyes were full of cinders
An’ me face was puffed & red;
Was I out of breath? you ask me —
Well it wasn’t that maybe
But you’d think t’ hear me gaspin’
That the breath was out of me.
An’ I thort that I was euchred
When I reached the ‘fourteen mile’
An’ I raved and cursed and shouted
Bile — you rotten blankard — bile
But it couldn’t last forever,
It had been quite a fair ole run —
She at last began to bubble
An’ I knew that I had won.
Fifteen miles or more I’d covered
I deserved a spot of luck,
For a bloke wat run as I did
Can’t be classed as short of pluck.
But a sudden notion hit me
An’ I got an awful shock
An’ I acted for some seconds
Like a bloke wat’s done ’is block,
Then I kicked that billy from me
An’ I groaned in anguish dire —
I ’ad left that tea and sugar
Where I’d lit that bloody fire.
T. V. Tiemey
(AWM PR 00526)
The Boozers’ Lament
We’ve fought upon Gallipoli
And toiled on Egypt’s plain
We’ve travelled far across the sea
To face the foe again;
We’ve faced the perils of the deep
And faced them with good cheer
But now they give us cause to weep
They’ve gone and stopped our beer.
We wouldn’t mind if they had stopped
The pickles and the cheese
They might have cut the marmalade
Or issued fewer peas,
But it’s a sin to drink red vin
Or for a cobber shout
Which kind of sets me wondering
If they’ve cut the champagne out.
They stopped our rum, we didn’t mind
While we had beer to soak,
But now they gone and stopped the wine
It’s getting past a joke.
Each countenance you see is sad
Within each eye a tear,
The greatest injury we’ve had
Is cutting out our beer.
For you must shun the flowing bowl
And turn you from the wine,
And water drink to cheer your soul
If it should chance to pine;
And you must order coffee
When you toast the folks at home
And spend your cash on toffee
Chewing gum and honey comb.
There’s microbes in the water lads
So drink it with a will
And every mother’s son of us
Will jolly soon be ill.
And when we’re on the sick parade
The Doctor he will cry:
“The lads, I fear, must have their beer
Else they will surely die!”
Sgt A.M. Dick (?)
(AWM PR 00187)
Oh! It’s Nice to be a Soldier.
Now I’ve joined up with the Army
It’s a home away from home,
The meals are really lovely
And you never hear a moan,
For it’s about this little rest home
That this tale I’m going to tell:
The Sergeant Major, he’s a pet,
The Captain’s really swell,
The Corporals are so nice to me,
And that’s fair dinky-di,
That when this war is over
I’ll just break down and cry.
Chorus
Oh! It’s nice to be a soldier,
Soldering will just suit me!
From first thing in the morning
Till it’s time to go to bed
We’re digging holes and sloping arms
Till we’re silly in the head.
When the canteen opens
All the boys begin to play
And by the time we get to sleep
It dawns another day.
But it’s nice to be a Soldier
Soldiering will just suit me.
Now every morning on parade
You cannot hear a sound,
Especially when the Sergeant Major’s
Marching up and down.
There’s a morning in particular
I was a trifle late,
The Captain gave me such a look
And said “You’re in a state.”
Then after I saluted him
This was my sad reply,
“I took a Number Nine last night
And my God! I nearly died!”
Now they march us out like lunatics
They call it on parade,
No one tells us anything
And the boys all look dismayed.
Then off we go to the RAP
Where we hang round telling yarns,
Until they squirt a little antidote
Into our flaming arms.
Then after this is over
They take us for a march,
It’s bad luck for the molly dooke
He cannot scratch his tail.
Will Handley
(AWM PR 85 205)
Bully Beef
Here I sit and sadly wonder
Why they sent me Bully Beef
Why the living, jumping thunder
I should bear such awful grief?
Did I ever, in my childhood
Cause my parents grief and pain?
Did I ever in a passion try to wreck a railway train?
Have I been a drunken husband?
Have I ever beat my wife?
Did I ever, just for past-time
Try to take my neighbour’s life?
If I haven’t, then I tell you
It is far beyond belief
Why they sent me greasy, sloppy
Undeciphered Bully Beef
Bully Beef, by all that’s mighty
Streaky, strangly Bully-Beef
I’d sooner face a thousand Jackos
Than half a tin of Bully-Beef.
Ask the cook, what’s for dinner
And he’ll tell you bully beef
Breakfast, dinner, tea or supper
All consists of bully beef.
bully beef, why blow me, Charlie,
I would forfeit ten days pay
If I could lose the sight of bully
Just for one clear gladsome ray.
Yet, they send me in a parcel
Along with greetings, short and brief,
Lots of nice things, sweet and tasty
But, among them, bully beef!
Tpr W. H. Johnstone (?)
8th ALH, AIF
(AWM PR 84/049)
Female Invasion
When the Munga steamed out of Sydney
On a wintry July afternoon,
Who would have thought for a moment
There’d be females invading her soon.
No one guessed when the Japs gave it best
What the future held in store;
The normally sexed were not perplexed
About a celibate year or more.
Not so our boys from the Wardroom,
Our inspiration, to wit,
A gentlemen can’t keep his end up
Without getting his regular bit.
So you should have seen the excitement
When the news got ’round down there,
We were taking on women and children:
’Twould’ve driven their wives to despair.
Now a bright boy is Subby Jack Alway,
Intent on making his bid
Knew the surest way to a woman’s heart
Is to make a hit with the kid.
None can gainsay that this worthy
Didn’t play his role to a tee,
’Twas only a matter of minutes
And he had a kid on his knees.
Who knows what went on in his cabin?
You can please yourselves about that,
But a bloke with a technique so subtle
Won’t waste time with a sniveling brat.
Now we’ve got a bloke name of Robeson,
An Engineer Subby, brand new,
Who fancies himself as a lover
We were anxious to see what he’d do.
In a minute or two from his debut
The women were calling his bluff,
And the boys looked anxiously ’bout them
For a bloke made of sterner stuff.
They weren’t to wait long for the answer
For presently hove into view
A real Casanova, no kidding,
With a lover’s Varsity Blue.
This bloke’s a national hero,
I’ll prove it to you old chap
Didn’t the Women’s Weekly
Reproduce his masculine map?
Noel Abrams (to whom I’m referring)
Wasn’t beating about the bush,
He went straight into action
With a regular gem of a blush.
This buggered the blokes’ calculations:
“Who’s going to save the side?”
They’d put all their dollars on Abrams,
A good bet, it can’t be denied.
Meantime the bookies were chuckling,
They’d selected the pick of the bunch,
But they didn’t let on to their cobbers
The guts of their shrewd little hunch.
This gent may’ve been schooled at
Eton, Harrow or Oxford, by Jove,
A regular hit with the ladies
And not a bad sort of a cove.
Well there’s no harm in him thinking it, fellers,
When a bloke likes to get himself in,
It’s a hell of a pity, admitted,
And a source of constant chagrin.
But as long as it isn’t contagious,
Don’t be a victim, my man,
Let him talk himself blind if he wishes
And get himself in when he can.
He’s got a beautiful accent
A product of RANC,
You’ll find it in most straight ringers,
The hallmark of dignity.
Ed Dollard’s the gent I’m portraying
Number one boy in the ship,
Well equipped both in poise and in stature,
Not averse to admiring a hip.
As most of the women were English
His bearing was made for the job,
And his form at this critical juncture
Was watched avidly by the mob.
He’s in an enviable possie,
The master of all he surveys,
It’s impressed all the women, the sucker,
His power in so many cute ways.
But despite his advantage as Jimmy
Our Ed didn’t do so hot,
But it wasn’t for lack of trying
He was giving it all he’d got.
Somehow these straight-ringers reckon
They’re perso-boys plus, it appears,
Take Edwards, mother perm product,
And not very far on in years.
The blokes hadn’t reckoned with Peter
On account of his thinning thatch,
They thought that the women would shun him
Foresaw no potential match.
The first thing that came to our notice —
We could hardly believe our eyes —
Was a game of ‘Handles’ on X deck
By jingo, we got a surprise.
Now I guess you’ve all seen the advert,
Depicting a bloke with no wool
Wed to a woman who trapped him
Just for the money — the fool.
Admitting that Peter’s no pauper
Tho’ bloody near bankrupt of hair
No woman would wed him for money
He’s no bloody millionaire.
This got the boys thinking shrewdly
“What’s Peter Edward’s game?”
She can’t harry him for his money,
And his thatch is a crying shame.”
But, kept under observation,
The boys discovered at length
That Pete was the hunted, not hunter —
The lass was exerting her strength.
Then came an expert manoeuvre,
A strategic withdrawal by name,
The woman abandoned her quarry
In search of more gullible game.
You must hand it to Frank Sanguinetti,
(Not a bad bloke, you’ll find),
A chap with a couple of youngsters
And a charming young wife left behind.
He didn’t fall for the glamour
Of a wench who’d be outcast in Vic,
Carried on with his regular business
And helped any kids who got sick.
Bishop and Stormy were others
Whose passions were not aroused,
Both likely-looking youngsters, too,
And neither of them espoused.
Theirs was the call of duty,
Likewise the Gunner (T),
“What is the love of a woman
Compared with the love of the sea?”
John Coles was another non-starter
In this Bacchanalian game,
His thought of his wife and his family
Hung on to his unbesmirched name.
Even our Yankee Allies,
Renowned for their womenly guiles,
Simply greeted the females with décor
And a few irreproachable smiles.
The Doctor had the boys guessing,
No one could quite make out
When he welcomed the femmes at the gangway
Just what it was all about.
Was it professional manner?
Or was he going to flout
The trust with which he’s divested?
He got the best of the doubt.
Put a query alongside Bob Wilshire,
He wasn’t seen much up on deck
Probably down in his cabin
With a passionate dame ’round his neck.
Tough luck for Skipper Nobby:
Whether he liked it or not,
The laws of the Navy dictated
The bridge was to be his spot.
Rather a handsome blighter,
Would’ve acquitted himself well
If given a chance like the others,
Might’ve trapped an unwary gal.
So listen, down in the Wardroom,
Why don’t you take a hint:
It’s the man that gets the woman —
Don’t care if you own the mint.
And though braid may look just ducky,
It’s superficial just,
It’s the man in you that gets ’em,
If get a woman you must.
Just look around the messdecks,
And see what I’m talking about,
You’ll be looking then at he-men,
Men’s men without a doubt.
So curb your sexual hunger
Wake up and do your stuff!
And never lose your heads boys,
Over a little bit of fluff.
‘Longfellow’
Tobruk Test
You’ve heard of Bradman, Hammond,
MacCartney, Woodfull, Hobbs,
You’ve heard of how MacDougall topped the score
Now I’d like to tell you
How we play cricket in Tobruk
In a way the game was never played before.
The players are a mixture,
They come from every rank
And their dress would not be quite the thing at Lord’s;
But you don’t need caps and flannels
And expensive batting gloves
To get the fullest sport the game affords.
The wicket’s rather tricky
For it’s mat on desert sand
But for us it’s really plenty good enough,
And what with big bomb craters
And holes from nine-inch shells,
The outfield could be well described as rough.
The boundary’s partly tank trap
With the balance dannert wire
And the grandstand’s just a bit of sandy bank,
While our single sightboard’s furnished
By a shot-down Jerry plane
And the scorer’s in a ruined Itie tank
One drawback is a minefield
Which is at the desert end
And critics might find fault with this and that,
But to us all runs are good ones
Even if a man should score
Four leg byes off the top of his tin hat.
The barracking is very choice,
The Hill would learn a lot
If they could listen in to all the cries
As the Quartermaster Sergeant
Bowls the Colonel neck and crop
With a yorker while some dust was in his eyes
And the time the Signals runner
Scored the winning hit
When, as he sprinted round the wire to try and save the four,
The Battery Sergeant Major
Fell into a crater deep
And the batsman ran another seven more.
If we drive one in the minefield
We always run it out
For that is what the local rules defines:
It’s always good for six at least,
Some times as high as ten
While the fieldsman picks his way in through the mines.
Though we never stop for shell-fire
We’re not too keen on planes,
But when the Stukas start to hover round
You can sometimes get a wicket,
If you’re game enough to stay
By bowling as the batsman goes to ground
So when we’re back in Sydney
And others start to talk
Of cricket, why we’ll quell them with a look:
“You blokes have never seen
A game of cricket properly played
The way we used to play it in Tobruk.”
Anon
(AWM PR 00359)
Promotion
“Promotion,” said one cocksure bloke,
Needs personality
You tell the CO some good joke,
And earn three stripes — watch me!”
He slapped the Colonels back and said,
“Old Cock, let’s have a drink!”
No stripes for him, no gold and red —
Just three weeks in the clink.
Anon
(AWM PR 00526)
ANZAC Exchange
Sarge, I think I’m buggered,
I’m bitten on me back,
a bloody snake’s bin crawlin’ thru the grass.
So call the Medic quick,
to give me arm a prick
and take away the pain until I pass.
Yer mate the Bombardier,
can have me ‘ish’ of beer,
I won’t be drinkin’ Fosters when I go.
I’ve wrote me mum a note,
and I’ve put it in me pack,
she’s livin’ down near Kunga-munga-mo.
So tell me Aussie mates,
youse Kiwi bloody skates,
have caused the death of one of Anzac’s finest.
And when I pass away
don’t put me in the clay,
the bloody dingoes here are rife as goats.
What’s that you bloody say?
the chopper’s on its way,
it won’t be here in time to save this Digger.
The Doc he said it’s what?
Now how did that get there?
A tear tab from a beer can caused this wound?
Well, the pain will pass away,
and I’ll fight another day,
but pleeze youse Kiwis keep this to yourselves!
Mike Subritzky
161 Battery at Enoggora, 1986