The Happy Warrior by Kerry B. Collison

a reeking tent, his rations often short,
    He thinks of all the steak and eggs and the beer that once he bought,
    But when the bombers fill the skies his rage begins to smoulder,
    When he sees his cobbers fall and die — the Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier.
His ack-ack guns and small arms too were shields to your defence,
    His body first to take the blow and if you are not too dense;
    You’ll take your hat off to the man, before you are much older,
    The man you used to spurn and rail — another Chocolate Soldier.
    Anon
    AAMWS, AIF
    (AWM PR 88 019)
----
    Doing Our Best
    There’s talk just now of leaving here,
    And going to pastures new,
    Of leaving all the work we’ve done
    Behind, it just won’t do.
    This place is like a home to us,
    We’re happy and content,
    We’ve built it up to what it is,
    The time has been well spent.
    We do our work, of course we do,
    Yet busy tho’ we be,
    We, most of us, have done our bit
    Working unitedly.
    Of course there are some careless chaps
    Who do not care a jot,
    Smashing trucks and shunning work –
    Efficient they are not.
    It may be only want of thought,
    Not realising the fact,
    That all these bad marks mounting up
    Can put us on the track.
    Meaning to say, that those in charge
    Cannot put up a fight
    To keep us here, if we do not
    Assist them as we might.
    We all must strive to do our job
    And give no chance at all
    To those who’d try to put us out
    And cash in on our job.
    We have a very decent lot
    Of officers — They’re men,
    Who one and all will stand by us,
    If we will stand by them.
    So let us do our very best
    That we may still enjoy
    The comfort of this best of camps,
    With nothing to annoy
    Pte Jim Baker
    NX139320
    116 Aust.Gen Trans. Coy
    Marrickville, NSW, 1947
----
    Army Days (Daze)
    I said I’d join the Army
    But they said, “Don’t do it lad,
    You’ll find conditions dreadful
    And I hear the food is bad.”
    But being kind of willful said,
    â€œI’ll just give it a fling”,
    To me the Army life appeared
    To be the very thing.
    But when into the showground
    We were herded like the sheep,
    And marched around Centennial Park
    And Showground roads three deep.
    I thought I’d made a big mistake,
    The Army life was not
    Just what it was cracked up to be,
    Not by a jolly lot.
    But then they sent me out at last,
    To GT 116
    And if I had my way at all,
    It would be there I’d stick.
    The only thing I did not like,
    Was getting out of bed
    And falling down the stairs the night
    The Japs came through the Heads.
    The workshop boys are all OK,
    They like their fun of course,
    But still they work and really are
    A credit to the Force.
    The drivers — well, we mend their truck
    And really ought to know...
    But p’raps I’d better not throw muck —
    Still, we wish they’d drive more slow!
    Pte Jim Baker
    NX139320
    116 Aust.Gen.Trans.Coy
    Marrickville, NSW. 9 September,1942
----
    â€œFight ’em Back!”
    When you read in daily papers of another air attack,
    Do you think of all the gunners standing by
    Pushing mighty stacks of ammo through the bores of every gun,
    Giving hell to Tojo’s bombers in the sky
    When you hear of Zeros strafing, you can picture gunners laughing
    As the Aussies and the Yanks hop to attack?
    You can bet your bottom dollar that the yellow rat will holler,
    For the ack-ack gunner’s creed is “Fight ’em back!”
    Who wants to be a gunner, and live beside the drome?
    It’s the target for tonight you cop the lot
    And you haven’t time to wonder as the guns are crashing thunder,
    What it is that makes a shell case so darned hot!
    They’re the ‘Heavies’ and the Bofors and the deadly point-fives too
    And they’re manned by Yanks and Aussies who won’t crack;
    So at a hundred shells a minute, sure the Japs just won’t be in it,
    For the ack-ack gunner’s creed is, “Fight em