⁠We were first when the trouble began,
From a lottery-row in Manila,
⁠To an I.D.B. race on the Pan
⁠(Dear boys!),
⁠With the Mounted Police on the Pan.

We preach in advance of the Army,
⁠We skirmish ahead of the Church,
With never a gunboat to help us
⁠When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.
But we know as the cartridges finish,
⁠And we're filed on our last little shelves,
That the Legion that never was 'listed
⁠Will send us as good as ourselves
⁠(Good men!),
⁠Five hundred as good as ourselves.

Then a health (we must drink it in whispers)
⁠To our wholly unauthorised horde—
To the line of our dusty foreloopers,