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