WHAT is meant by active service
'Ere where sin is leakin' loose,
'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis
As a dog-bedevilled goose,
Has bin writ be every poet
What can rhyme it worth a dam,
But the 'orror as we know it
Is jist jam, jam, JAM!
Oh, the 'ymn of 'ate we owe it--
Stodgy, splodgy, seepy, soaky, sanguinary
jam!
There's the "fearful roar iv battle,"
What gets underneath yer 'at,
Mooin' like a million cattle
Each as big as Ararat;
There's the red field green 'n' slippy
(And I'm cleaner where I am),
But the thing that's got me nippy
It is jam, jam, JAM!
Druv us sour it has, 'n' dippy,
Sticky, sicky, slimy, sloppy, stummick-strafin'
jam!
Of the mud that's in the trenches
Writers make a solemn fuss;
For the vermin 'n' the stenches
Little ladies pity us;
But the yearn that's honest dinkum,
'N' the prayer what ain't a sham
Is that Fritz may bust 'n' sink 'em
Ships of jam, jam, JAM!
For we bolt 'em, chew 'em, drink 'em,
Million billion bar'ls of beastly, cloyin'
clammy jam!
We are sorry-sick of peaches,
'N' we're full right up of plum,
'N' innards fairly screeches
When the tins of apple come.
Back of Blighty piled in cases,
Jist as close as they can cram,
Fillin' all the open spaces,
Is the 'jam, jam, JAM!
Oh, the woe the soldiers face is,
Monday, Sunday, ruddy, muddy, boundless
bogs of jam.
WEEPIN' WILLIE.
WHEY our trooper hit wide water every
heart was yearin' back
To the little 'ouse at Coogee or a hut at Bar-
renjack.
She was 'ookin' up to spike the stars, or rootin'
in the wave,
An' me liver turned a hand spring with each
buck the beggar gave.
Then we pulls a sick 'n' silly smile 'n' tips a
saucy lid,
Crackin' hardy. Willie didn't. Willie
snivelled like a kid.
At Gallip' the steamer dumped us, 'n' we got
right down to work,
Whoopin' up the hill splendacious, playin'
tiggie with the Turk.
When the stinkin' Abdul hit us we curled
down upon a stone,
'N' we yelled for greater glory, crackin' 'ardy
on our own.
Not so Willie. He was cursin', cold ez death
'n' grey ez steel,
'N' the smallest thing that busted made the
little blighter squeal.
In the bitter day's that follered, spillin' life be-
side the sea,
We would fake a spry expression for the things
that had to be,
Always dressin' up the winder, crackin' 'ardy
though we felt
Fearful creepy in the whiskers, very cold be-
neath the belt.
But his jills would sniff 'n' shiver in the mother
of a fright,
'N' go blubberin' 'n' quakin' out to waller in
the fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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