“HOMMES 40, CHEVAUX 8”
Roll, roll, roll, over the rails of France,
See the world and its map unfurled, five centimes in your pants.
What a noble trip, jolt and jog and jar,
Forty we, with Equipment C in one flat-wheeled box-car.
We are packed by hand,
Shoved aboard in ’teens,
Pour a little oil on us
And we would be sardines.
Rations? Oo-la-la! and how we love the man
Who learned how to intern our chow in a cold and clammy can.
Beans and beef and beans, beef and beans and beef,
Willie raw, he will win the war, take in your belt a reef.
Mess kits flown the coop,
Cups gone up the spout;
Use your thumbs for issue forks,
And pass the bull about.
Hit the floor for bunk, six hommes to one homme’s place;
It’s no fair to the bottom layer to kick ’em in the face.
Move the corp’ral’s feet out of my left ear;
Lay off, sarge, you are much too large, I’m not a bedsack, dear.
Lift my head up, please,
From this bag of bread;
Put it on somebody’s chest,
Then I’ll sleep like the dead.
Roll, roll, roll, yammer and snore and fight,
Travelling zoo the whole day through and bedlam all the night.
Four days in the cage, going from hither hence;
Ain’t it great to ride by freight at good old Unc’s expense?