Barrack Room Ballads: THE LOST LEGION

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THE LOST LEGION

THERE’S a Legion that never was ‘listed,
     That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
     Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing
     They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we’ve shaken the Clubs and the Messes
     To go and find out and be damned,
                                       Dear boys!
     To go and get shot and be damned.

So some of us chevy the slaver,
     And some of us cherish the black,
And some of us hunt on the Oil Coast,
     And some on—the Wallaby track:
And some of us drift to Sarawak,
     And some of us drift up The Fly,
And some share our tucker with tigers,
     And some with the gentle Masai,
                                       Dear boys!
     Take tea with the giddy Masai.

We’ve painted The Islands vermilion,
     We’ve pearled on half-shares in the Bay,
We’ve shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,
     We’ve starved on a Kanaka’s pay.
We’ve laughed at the world as we found it,—
     Its women and cities and men
From Say Yid Burgash in a tantrum
     To the smoke-reddened eyes of Loben,
                                       Dear boys!
     We’ve a little account with Loben.

We opened the Chinaman’s oil-well,
     But the dynamite didn’t agree,
And the people got up and fan-kwaied us,
     And we ran from Ichang to the sea.
Yes, somehow and somewhere and always
     We were first when the trouble began,
From a lottery-row in Manila
     To an I. D. B. race on the Pan,
                                       Dear boys!
     With the Mounted Police on the Pan.

We preach in advance of the Army,
     We skirmish ahead of the Church,
With never a gunboat to help us
     When we’re scuppered and left in the lurch.
But we know as the cartridges finish
     And we’re filed on our last little shelves,
That the Legion that never was ‘listed
     Will send us as good as ourselves,
                                       (Good men!)
     Five hundred as good as ourselves.

Then a health (we must drink it in whispers),
     To our wholly unauthorised horde
To the line of our dusty foreloopers,
     The Gentlemen Rovers abroad.
Yes, a health to ourselves ere we scatter,
     For the steamer won’t wait for the train,
And the Legion that never was ‘listed
     Goes back into quarters again.
                                       ‘Regards!
     Goes back under canvas again.
                                       Hurrah!
     The swag and the billy again.
                                       Here’s how!
     The trail and the packhorse again.
                                       Salue!
     The trek and the lager again.

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