MacAlpine’s Fuzilliers

As down the glen came McAlpine's men with their shovels slung behind them
It was in the pub that they drank their sub or down in the spike you will find him
We sweated blood and we washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer
But now we're on the road again with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I stripped to the skin with the Darky Finn down upon the Isle of Grain,
With Horseface Toole I learned the rule, no money if you stop for rain.
For McAlpine's god is a well filled hod with your shoulders cut to bits and seared
And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I remember the day that the Bear O'Shea fell into a concrete stair,
What Horseface said, when he saw him dead, well it wasn't what the rich call prayers.
I'm a navvy short, was his one retort that reached unto my ears,
When the going is rough, well you must be tough with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I've worked till the sweat near had me beat with Russian, Czech and Pole,
At shuttering jams up in the hydra dams or underneath the Thames in a hole,
I grafted hard and I got me cards and many a ganger's fist across me ears,
If you pride your life, don't join, by Christ, with McAlpine's Fusiliers