The Happy Warrior (32 page)

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