Beersheba

April 5, 2018 | Author: Anonymous | Category: Documents
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Beersheba The soldiers ate their breakfast Bully beef and biscuits They’d ridden for the last two days and nights Their faithful horses ground their oats Through bitted mouths in nosebags Veterans of a hundred desert fights Chorus It’s through the Sinai desert, boys On the way to Gaza Jerusalem is in our sights But first we need Beersheba The waters of Beersheba Australian guns were blazing On the slopes of Tel el Saba The British fought the action to the west But the Turks and Germans grimly Manned the ramparts of Beersheba Determined to withstand another test Come on! Come on infantry! Hit ‘em hard, artillery, If this operation’s to succeed Beersheba must be captured We must take the town by nightfall Beersheba’s water is our greatest need. Chorus The day dragged on, the fight was grim Sunset just an hour away Chauvel could see the only way to go “We’ll charge their bloody trenches With the Fourth and Twelfth Light Horse It’s the only way to win this little show”. Mount up! Fourth and Twelfth Light Horse! Fix bayonets for the charge Say your prayers and wave your mates goodbye For you must ride those three long miles And take the Turkish trenches p. 160, Egan, Ted, The Land Downunder, Grice Chapman Publishing, 2003 Beersheba boys, you must do or die. Chorus Across the rocky plain they rode A trot to form the line A canter for another mile or more Eight hundred wild colonial boys Then thundered to a gallop Riding as they’d never done before Shells are bursting round them Sheets of flame and dust Horses and their riders blown apart Still they charged relentlessly A mile ahead and they can see The trenches where the fight will really start Machine guns fired and rifles spat Their message at the horses that Began to jump the trenches one by one The fighting’s hand to hand The enemy could not withstand Cold steel, and then the fighting’s done The canvas troughs are then unrolled The horses slake their thirst Girths are slackened by Beersheba’s Gate The tired Australian horseman Strokes the neck of his old Waler, “Well done, well bloody done, my dear old mate”. Chorus p. 160, Egan, Ted, The Land Downunder, Grice Chapman Publishing, 2003


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