As a band of shipwrecked sailors, Cast upon a desert island, Strain their eyes in weary watching For a sail on the horizon, Even so the Royal Dudshires Watched and waited for the order That would send them to the trenches, Take them from their desert island, From their daily round of digging. And at times there came a rumour, Like a speck on the horizon. Eagerly the Dudshires hailed it, Thought that it was going to save them, But it always came to nothing. So they sweltered through the summer, Through the arid Balkan summer, And the sun beat down upon them, Hot as towels a Yankee barber Claps upon you when he’s shaved you. They would rise at godless hours, Working in the dawn and evening, And throughout the blazing daytime Lie inside their scorching bivvies On a barren Balkan hillside (Innocent of shade or cover As a very bald man’s head is), Lie and curse the tepid water, Curse the flies and the mosquitoes, Till at last there came the order, Secret order for their moving To the front line and the trenches, And in under twenty minutes Every soldier knew about it. All was bustle and excitement, Packing up and getting ready, And the T.O. and the Q.M. Swore their lives were not worth living, Swore they’d need at least another Fifty mules to move the regiment. And straightway my Tiadatha Went and got his kit together, Did his utmost to reduce it, Threw away a pair of bedsocks, And a tie his aunt had sent him, Sighed to leave his bed behind him, Wrought by Private Woggs, his batman, Wrought from bits of ration boxes, And a scrap of wire netting. Then at last one summer evening, In July of 1916, Tiadatha and the Dudshires Started on their journey northward, On their journey to the trenches; Every night at dusk they started, Marched with full packs through the darkness (No one talking, no one smoking), Plodded onward through the darkness, And, perhaps at two ac emma, Reached a barren piece of waste land, Found their mules and fetched their blankets, Dossed down with the stars for ceiling, Snatched a little sleep till daylight. All the day they lay and simmered, Stuck a blanket up for shelter, Spent the sultry morning thinking Of the things they would have given For a long sweet draught of cold beer, Bass or Worthington or Allsopp, In a long cool lager beer mug. Sighed, and drank some tepid water, Ate some squishy-squashy bully, Moist and warm and very nasty. For five nights and days the Dudshires Fared upon their journey northward, On the sixth they reached the front line And relieved a French battalion, In a pelting, pouring rainstorm.