I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up this morning,
I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up at all;
The corp’ral’s worse than the private, the sergeant’s worse than the corp’ral,
The lieutenant’s worse than the sergeant, and the captain’s worse than them all.
At the same moment, from the infantry and artillery camp also pealed its reveille.
There was a brief pause; and next must be sounded the “Assembly.” Out from the barracks poured the men, buttoning coats and clapping on caps, to form their companies. The sergeants called the roll, and reported on the “present, absent, or accounted for.”
Smokes were wafting upward from the chimneys of company cooks, and of wives and servants in officers’ row, and soon Ned, now alone, from the parade-ground must sound “Mess”:
Soup-y, soup-y, soup-y, not a single bean;
Coff-ee, coff-ee, coff-ee, and not a bit of cream;
Pork-y, pork-y, porky, and not a blamed streak o’ lean!
So, too, he sounded “Stables”:
Come off to the stable all ye who are able,
And give your horses some oats and some corn;
For if you don’t do it your colonel will know it,
And then you will rue it, as sure as you’re born.
And “Sick Call”:
Go get your pills, go get your pills;
Go get your pills, go get your pills;
Go get your pills, go get your pills;
Go get your pi-lls. Go get your pills.