Poem - Arthur St. John Adcock

On the Sand

By Lance Corporal Cobber (aka: Arthur St. John Adcock)

They ‘ave dumped us in the desert, by the sleepy slimy Nile,

Where there’s too much sand an’ far more thirsts than drinks;

We ’ave done the plagues of Egypt in a champeen, slap-up style,

Queered the fellahs an’ the locusts an’ the grinnin’ crocodile,

An’ we’ve had some donkey-ridin’ to the Sphinx;

We’ve bin boiled an’ baked an’ frizzled till we’re turnin’ brown an’ lean,

For it’s only cool inside the Pyramid;

Out o’ doors the sunshine burns an’ shrivels everything that’s green,

It’s as dry as if you’d tumbled into – you know what I mean,

An’ somebody had shut the bloomin’ lid!

But we haven’t found no War here, an’ we’re more than half afraid

They haven’t got none saved for us, or else it’s bin mislaid;

We mooch around and arsk ‘em: “Where’s this War we came to get?”

An’ everybody’s heard of it but no one’s seen it yet!

So at Sertun and at Maadi we are stewin’ in the sun,

And there’s nothin’, nothin’ doin’, ‘cos there’s nothin’ to be done!

Have you route-marched in the desert with a copper-coloured sky

Glarin’ like a doorless furnace overhead,

With the sand all shiftin’ through yer, in yer boots and in yer eye,

In yer throat and in yer tummy, cakin’ rough an’ thick an’ dry,

And yer tongue a solid, red-hot lump o’ lead?

Have you drilled an’ drilled an’ stiffened into automatic things,

While yer brains was parched and shrinkin’ all away,

Till yer arms an’ legs was bits o’ wood that jerked on rusty springs,

An’ the earth kep’ waltzing round yer, an’ you seemed to walk in rings

An’ yer innards turned to sawdust mixed with hay?

Is it strange that when we went on leave we cut the traces slick?

Ar, we woke up old Ca-iro with a shout,

We shook the dead bazaars alive an’ scared the Moslems sick,

An’ the yashmacked Cleopatras pattered past us coy an’ quick,

As we turned the whole caboodle inside out.

Ar, glad an’ bad an’ gay it was – but some ‘ave had to pay,

They pranced it blind along the primrose track,

An’ they’re broken now an’ outed, they ‘ave shipped the bunch away,

Their name is Mud, poor gazobs, an’ we chews the rag to-day

For the legion of the lost that’s booted back.

Oh, it’s sand an’ sand an’ sand agen, an’ nothin’ else but sand,

An’ we’re trampin’ through to nowhere without end!

Oh, we’re tired of evenin’ sing-songs, tired of listenin’ to the band,

Tired of diggin’ miles of trenches over Pharaoh’s roasted land,

An’ we’d hail the foe an’ greet him like a friend;

But we keeks across the Suez an’ he never comes in sight:

Has a sandstorm choked the blighter dark an’ deep?

Has he perished of a sunstroke, has he scooted in a fright?

Lord, we left our little happy homes a-purpose for to fight,

An’ there’s nothin’ here to do but sweat an sleep!

For we haven’t found the War yet, an’ we’re more than half afraid

They’ve finished it without us, it’s forgotten, or mislaid,

An’ we mooch around an’ arsk ‘em when the War will be on show,

Has it met with any accident” But no one seems to know;

So we blister at Menai, frizzlin’, grizzlin’ in the sun,

And there’s nothin’, nothin’ doin’, ‘cos there’s nothin’ to be done!