The Happy Warrior (36 page)

And this wallet you still find intact

Will you send it back home to my sister?”

And we shook on that last solemn pact.

By next dawn the shrapnel was flying

And bullets were falling like rain

The sun rose on dead men and dying

Out there on that shell battered plain.

We stuck side by side with a Bren gun,

We kept up a deadly tattoo,

All the sand and the dust choked the action

And we knew we had but one thing to do.

We had just reached the head of ‘Death Gully' —

That place ain't a name on its own

For 'twas there that death reaped a harvest

From the seed that a nation had sown.

The shells fell more thickly around us

As we knelt and dismantled the gun

While the dust and the smoke from the battle

In a great cloud that blacked out the sun.

“Gun ready!” he shouted “Up lad,

Grab hold of your ammo and run!”

As he sprang to his feet he fell backwards,

A dead man on top of his gun.

In a stupor I knelt down beside him,

I saw that his battle was through,

That a hard cruel fate had denied

The best friend I ever knew.

I picked up his shrapnel-scarred Bren gun

With a curse for the foemen ahead,

I went onward to join in the battle

While behind me my comrade lay dead.

I thought of the Mother and Sister

He had left in his own native land

And the last solemn promise I made him

And the firm honest clasp of his hand

The fight had grown fierce by midday

Our advance was considerably slowed

The D Company reached an embankment

And took cover behind a raised road.

Our ammo supply was exhausted —

We'd lost more than half of our men –

We faced fourteen guns with bare bayonets

And five magazines for a ‘Bren'.

Now those cannons are silent and rusted

They are pointed in shame at the ground

While the crews of them have all been mustered

And placed in a prison compound.

By noon on the third day we ceased firing

The battle of Bardia was won,

Then orders were given for retiring —

The worst was still to be done.

For lying back there on the desert

Among scores of our valiant dead

With the soft desert sands sweeping over him

Lay the best friend I ever had.

The sun on the fourth day was sinking

On a desert now far, far away

When two men stood silently thinking

By the grave where our dead comrade lay.

So gently we laid him forever

'Neath his name on a rough wooden cross,

And we shared with our loved ones so far off

This sadness and terrible loss.

The high Army Command heard the story

And despite all our terrible loss

They wrapped up our company in glory

And presented our Captain a cross.

So we won the first stage of the battle,

With honours we carried the day,

We rounded up prisoners like cattle

And hastily marched them away.

In a wadi where shells couldn't find us

We lay to snatch brief respite

A battalion moved in behind us

And the battle raged on through the night.

And now when the evening is falling

‘Retreat' sounds so sweet and so sad

My thoughts fly to faraway Bardia

And the best friend I ever had.

Anon

(AWM PR 00526)

March of the 7th Division

A ribbon of green 'neath an azured sky

As the men in their jungle suits march by

But I see them again in the mountainous heights

In the tawny semi-treacherous light.

I see them splashed with rain and mud

Broken bodies and guns and blood

Ever advancing, gaunt and lean,

An endless column in jungle green.

And too I see, as they march along

In faded green, a ghostly throng;

I hear the sound of their phantom feet

Silently pacing the sunlit street.

For them the cheers and waving flags

In their darkened valleys and mountain crags

My heart is filled with pride and pain

For the deathless band who march again

And who shall stay their fateful stride,

Can stay the flood of the flowing tide?

Their guns are broken, their deeds are done

But their standard is raised 'neath the southern sun.

Onward and upward 'tis borne along

Mine ears are filled with their silent song

And I look to hear in the years ahead

The triumphant tramp of our marching dead.

Cpl Frank Lundie

2/27 Batt.

(AWM PR 00619)

HMAS Sydney

She may not come back in triumph

Of bunting or of bell,

With a victor's pride about her

As she breasts the harbour swell.

There will be no bands aplaying,

No whistle piping clear,

As she swings aside the pier.

But at midnight in the silence

When the very stars are dark

She may come again to moorings,

A ghostly phantom barque.

Though she lie in floods unfathomed,

We may seem to see once more,

Her silver shape go shining

Down the path she trod before.

Not in fury, not in peril

Of battle or of crag,

But with life-breath in her funnel

And with flutter in her flag;

And the eyes of her last company

Seeming bright and valiant yet

Ah! The iron ship shall moulder

Ere the hearts at home forget.

Lance Fallaw

(AWM PR 87/062)

The Last Farewell

Some survive on the battle field

Where others, sadly, die;

Some had time for a last farewell

Reaching vainly for the sky.

And I wonder, how much time will pass,

How long before I see

The hills of home, a country lane,

Or smell an old gum tree.

Times are tough, the going rough,

No life for man or beast,

Cold bully and biscuits hard as nails —

At times even this a feast.

The blood and mud, heavy underfoot,

The vermin a constant curse,

At least those alive can still complain:

Could things ever get much worse.

Then you look at the man, standing by your side

You hardly know him at all,

But your life may rest in his two hands

When you hear the bugle call.

With shot and shell and bullet whine,

Side by side we run,

Knowing not the reason why

This battle has begun.

As we go through the bloody slaughter,

This man-made image of hell,

There's a gasp from the man beside me

A sad look and a last farewell.

James D. Young

Remember

The sinking of H.M.A.S. Canberra, 9 August 1942

'Twas on the ninth of August, just after midnight fell,

The heavy cruiser Canberra was steaming through the swell

The night was very dark and still,

Till the alarm bells rent the air —

The enemy was close at hand

And things had to be prepared.

Then suddenly the stillness broke with a terrific bang and roar,

And a salvo of shells crashed through the plates,

And some men knew no more.

The old ship stopped, the lights went out,

She shook from stem to stern,

She listed port and lay there still,

Just off Tulagi shore.

When dawn broke, the rain was worse,

The wounded men just lying there, not even rent a curse.

A stoker spoke before he died,

“Just tell the wife, I love her dearly,

And when the baby comes along,

Don't forget to call him John.”

A smile just lingered on his face,

“Goodbye old man,” he said “Young John will take my place.”

The word came through to abandon ship

For she was listing fast,

And as we pulled away each man looked up with tear-wet eyes

And gave three hearty cheers;

And in each heart, I know quite well,

There was a silent prayer.

Leading Stoker F. J. ‘Shags' Turner

A survivor

The Reluctant Hero

He was just an ordinary youngster

From an ordinary part of town,

When the National Service call up

Finally tracked him down.

They put him in a uniform

And handed him a gun,

The ungodly metamorphosis

Of this boy had now begun.

They trained him in the art of war

Said the jungle was his friend,

Then shipped him off to Vietnam

His training at an end.

There he found a different world

Learnt many things he didn't know,

How to fight a dirty war

When you can't tell friend from foe.

He learnt a strange new language

To describe a soul destroying fight,

Search and destroy, win the hearts and minds:

Would the politicians ever get it right?

Silent jungle, clammy heat

Expectation, but who knows of what,

Feeling observed by a thousand eyes

Waiting to fire that first fatal shot.

A sigh of relief passed down the line

As the ‘pick-up zone' came in sight,

The choppers arrive, exactly as planned —

It's back to Nui Dat for the night.

Now he has time to think of Vung Tau

And girls in the ubiquitous bar,

Or better still, a week in Hong Kong,

On some well earned R and R.

But what of our conscript, here by chance,

Looking forward to a spell in reserve?

Those who legislated this lottery

Knew they'd never be asked to serve.

Soon back to war, as all soldiers must

To execute those malevolent skills,

To join once more in the dance macabre

In those distant, Vietnamese hills.

He didn't hear the rifle shot

They say you never do,

And somewhere in the Long Hai Hills

A young soldier's life was through.

He saw not the flag draped casket

Nor heard the Last Post call,

One of many, who didn't make it

Those reluctant heroes all.

James D. Young

Milne Bay

In an old Australian homestead, with roses round the door,

A girl received a letter which just came from the war;

With her Mother's arms around her, she gave way to sobs and sighs

And as she read that letter, the tears came to her eyes.

Why do I weep, why do I pray?

My love's asleep, so far away;

He played his part that April day

And left my heart in Milne Bay.

She joined a band of Sisters, underneath the Cross of Red,

Just to forget a heartache of a lad who now lies dead;

Many suitors came to woo her but they sadly turned away

When she told to them the story, of a grave in Milne Bay.

Anon

(AWM PR 88 019)

Goodbye, All

Written by a stretcher-bearer as a tribute to a nineteen year-old country lad he found on the wire at Tobruk.

“Yes, Dig, I've stopped it pretty bad,

Think I've done a wing;

I'm comfortable... don't worry lad,

You're like a breath of spring.

“A cigarette... my oath I will ...

May prove to be the last.

You Red Cross blokes just take the pill

Never wait until you're asked.

“I think I'm going, Nightingale,

Just tell me as a friend

You'll see and tell her without fail

She's with me to the end.”

I held a hand that tightly closed

Around the name he pressed

Into my palm. He dozed,

He closed his eyes in rest.

I've heard the cheers, that sweet refrain,

I've felt the crowd's pulse throb,

I've clasped the hand of noble strain

I've shaken with the mob.

But back o' handshakes I'll recall

His handclasp and his look.

His bravely whispered “Goodbye, all!”

That still night in Tobruk.

Pte J. Kneeshaw, QX14342

(AWM PR 87/062)

The AIF is Calling

From the fields of battle o'er the sea

The Diggers call to you and me:

Give us tanks and give us guns