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THE
ROAD OF THE TEN THOUSAND CROSSES
by
Hayes and Vernon
These are the orders - orders divisional -
Send to the Traffic and the M.P.s too
Clear all the roads for the stop-press batteries
Four and twenty guns, they must get through
Four and twenty guns coming up from Dickebusch
Bash ‘em up to Passchendale, the staff are in a stew
Clear all the traffic for the stop-press batteries
Coming Hell for leather, and they must get through.
What’s to be done? Limber, lorry, ambulance
Three days blocked - and the rations overdue
Turn ‘em off at Mill Cot - Chuck ‘em on the side road
Anything so long as the guns get through
Guns - Guns - creeping up at Vlamertinghe
Who gave the order? God knows who
Roads like porridge, and they’re shelling like the devil
But the stop-press batteries must get through.
East of Wipers - battered to a shambles
One-way road and we’re using it for two
Mud - blood - and the rain on top of it
Clear up the traffic, let the guns get through
Guns - Guns - passing the gas-ometer
Night - black - and the mud like glue
Couple up a caterpillar - ditch that motor lorry
Only twenty miles till the guns come through
Roads - Roads - patch ‘em up with anything
Horses - Mules - and the dead men too
Five minutes more! tell the sappers for the love of God
The guns will be here and they must get through
Hark - now - through the thunder of the shelling
Comes the rattle and the thudding of the stop-press crew
Four and twenty field guns clattering to Passchendale
God work a miracle - they MUST get through
Blast - that - driver with the ambulance
Park it on the run-round. Men, stand to!
The rag-time scallywags a-cantering to Passchendale
Roads all clear, Sir - Guns go through
(Slower)
Those were the orders - orders divisional,
From somebody or other who had never seen the front
Four and twenty guns - ten thousand Lancashires
All gone to glory for a dam-fool stunt
Twenty thousand Lancashires pushing into Passchendale
Following the orders of the Lord-knows-who
Ten thousand Lancashires - slaughtered up at Passchendale
Ten thousand crosses where the guns went through
For the Guns - the Guns - that galloped up to Passchendale
Never fired a shot - but they went right through
And who was the lunatic - the muddle-headed lunatic
Who sent them up to Passchendale? No one ever knew
But the traffic got the order, ‘Roads’ got the order,
And the ‘guns’ got the order, so the guns went through.
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