Free The Happy Warrior by Kerry B. Collison

went the Bofors guns —
    And the Rats stood back
    And shot lead at the hated Huns.
    Anon
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    The Wounded from Tobruk
    You come limping down the gangplank,
    Or you’re carried down instead,
    Carried in a blanket with a boot beneath your head,
    And you look all lean and hungry
    Beneath your good old Aussie grin,
    Sick of bully beef and biscuits
    But the sort that won’t give in.
    You’re smiled at by a bearer,
    Who’s muscular and big
    Fishing fags out from his pocket
    With a “Better have one, Dig!”
    And you take it as he lights it,
    And return a wiry grin,
    Making little of your trouble,
    Though there’s no one taken in.
    For they know that you’ve been through it,
    And there’s nothing much to say,
    You’re a base-job or a blighty,
    And they’ll help you on your way,
    For the skies were full of zoomers,
    And the sand bags fairly shook,
    Like the good old Bondi boomers
    When you stopped one at Tobruk.
    And I’m proud that I’m Australian,
    When I look at men like these;
    They’re the men who marched beside me,
    Back in Woodside Camp in threes.
    In the days when life was rosy,
    Full of laughter, love and beer,
    And I never thought I’d see them
    Carried down a gangplank here.
    Well they’ve done their best for England,
    And they’ve done their best for home,
    For the girls they left behind them
    And the pals across the foam;
    And may Australia not forget them
    When they are invalided back,
    Nor leave them, poor and jobless,
    For the dole queue or the track.
    Anon
----

    The Emperor: 1945
    Oh, fearful he who plays the game
    Of treachery and strife,
    With free men’s license now to count
    The cost of human life!
    â€™Tis not the Khan’s armada
    That presses to the shore,
    But vengeance, dark, within these ships
    That stand outside the door.
    Oh wasted Kamikaze!
    Divine warriors from the sky!
    You fell like cherry blossoms
    And like cherry blossoms … died.
    Now a sun god shrinks from black defeat,
    And an Emperor quakes as his empire shrinks;
    No majesty, no honour, no mystery now,
    Just the muffled drum of a lone heartbeat.
    Grahame Fooks
    PM7560
    Grahame Fooks served on HMAS Quickmatch from 1944 - 1946 and, as part of Task Force 57 on ‘Operation Iceberg,’ had first hand experience of Kamikaze attacks on the fleet.
----

    Quickmatch
    The oily water laps her sides
    In the blackness of the night;
    Asleep, her breathing can be felt
    And she’s restless for the light
    â€œLet go forward! Let go aft!”
    She shudders at the cry,
    Slips out to sea with an eager look,
    For it’s where her pleasures lie.
    She dips her bow in salute to the waves
    And they become as one,
    While the bos’n’s pipe is lost in the wind
    And her shrouds sing a song to the sun.
    Grahame Fooks
    PM 7560
----

    The Tale of Tobruk
    We got in a ship and sailed out to the sea
    And each of us then were in spirits of glee,
    For ’twas farewell to Egypt and old King Farouk;
    We were bound for the beautiful town of Tobruk.
    A night and a day we sailed over the waves
    Then arrived in Tobruk with its harbour of graves.
    There were ships all around us, but sad to relate
    They were all under water — a terrible state.
    We gazed and we thought as our eyes met that sight
    Of all the good ships in that terrible plight.
    There were British and Jerries and Ities galore;
    Oh! the price that we pay when we’re going to war!
    Now we sighted this town which before us did lie
    And most of us then heaved a mighty big sigh,
    For this was our home right down to the sea
    And none of us knew for how long it would be.
    We walked through the streets ’twas a pitiful sight,
    Each shop in a turmoil, just a ragman’s delight;
    Devastation lay around us where the bombs had come down —
    Man’s folly had wrecked this once beautiful town.
    As the weeks passed to months and the weather grew hot,
    Each mother’s son groused at his terrible