Company Fifty-Four.

Marching through the desert sands,
Was the Company Fifty-Four.
Here no green and pleasant lands.
Just the barren desert floor.
Full packs on our bent and tired backs,
A rifle and fixed bayonet at the ready.
The deadly fear of an Arab attack,
With nerves that were not too steady.
Bidons of water warm not fresh,
To quench an everlasting thirst.
We were caught in the Legions mesh,
Wondering who would die the first.
Mile after mile marching at the Legions pace,
Ammunition weighing us down.
The Sergeant Chef with a grim face,
Driving us on past the next town.
The Company Fifty-Four was to replace the dead and the dying,
Of a God forsaken fort in the middle of no-where.
A handful of survivors were on our Company relying,
Legionnaires some that by now did not any more care.
Onward we marched to the refrain of a Legion song,
Desperate with throats parched from the dust and the heat.
None of us in this land did belong,
We just followed our sore aching feet.
The fort came into sight the Tricolour still flying,
We had arrived in the nick of time.
We buried the dead and tended the dying.
Before we washed off the march's grime.
Sentries were placed at strategic points,
Machine guns brought into position.
We hasted to tend our aching joints,
And re-cursed the heavy ammunition.
Two days to build new defences and repair the fort,
Then the Arabs attacked yet once again.
With a new strength we somehow fought,
There was no time to take real aim.
Now there were Arabs dead and dying,
Brave men without a doubt.
This was honesty without lying.
As their warriors were slowly wiped out.

© Bernard Shaw