'Where 'ave you been this week or more,
'Aven't seen you about the war?
Thought perhaps you was at the rear
Guarding the waggons.' 'What, us? No fear!
Where have we been? Why, bless my heart,
Where have we been since the bloomin' start?
Right in the front of the army,
Battling day and night!
Right in the front of the army,
Teaching 'em how to fight!'
Every separate man you see,
Sapper, gunner, and C.I.V.,
Every one of 'em seems to be
Right in the front of the army!
Most of the troops to the camp had gone,
When we met with a cow-gun toiling on;
And we said to the boys, as they walked her past,
'Well, thank goodness, you're here at last!'
'Here at last! Why, what d'yer mean?
Ain't we just where we've always been?
Right in the front of the army,
Battling day and night!
Right in the front of the army,
Teaching 'em how to fight!'
Correspondents and vets. in force,
Mounted foot and dismounted horse,
All of them were, as a matter of course,
Right in the front of the army.
Old Lord Roberts will have to mind
If ever the enemy get behind;
For they'll smash him up with a rear attack,
Because his army has got no back!
Think of the horrors that might befall
An army without any rear at all!
Right in the front of the army,
Battling day and night!
Right in the front of the army,
Teaching 'em how to fight!
Swede attaches and German counts,
Yeomen (known as De Wet's remounts),
All of them were by their own accounts
Right in the front of the army!
That V.C.
'Twas in the days of front attack,
This glorious truth we'd yet to learn it --
That every 'front' had got a back,
And French was just the man to turn it.
A wounded soldier on the ground
Was lying hid behind a hummock;
He proved the good old proverb sound --
An army travels on its stomach.
He lay as flat as any fish,
His nose had worn a little furrow;
He only had one frantic wish,
That like an antbear he could burrow.
The bullets whistled into space,
The pom-pom gun kept up its braying,
The four-point-seven supplied the bass --
You'd think the devil's band was playing.
A valiant comrade crawling near
Observed his most supine behaviour,
And crept towards him, 'Hey! what cheer?
Buck up,' said he, 'I've come to save yer.
'You get up on my shoulders, mate,
And if we live beyond the firing,
I'll get the V.C. sure as fate,
Because our blokes is all retiring.
'It's fifty pounds a year,' says he,
'I'll stand you lots of beer and whisky.'
'No,' says the wounded man, 'not me,
I'll not be saved, it's far too risky.
'I'm fairly safe behind this mound,
I've worn a hole that seems to fit me;
But if you lift me off the ground,
It's fifty pounds to one they'll hit me.'
So back towards the firing line
Our friend crept slowly to the rear oh!
Remarking 'What a selfish swine!
He might have let me be a hero.'