Kokoda Track - Slim Dusty

With no shouldered arms or bayonet fixed they march on Anzac Day

Measured tramp of steel-shod heels a memory away

Veterans of a jungle war who to hell and back

Those ragged bloody heroes of that grim Kokoda track

So dig your reversed rifles in the mire of memory

The swirling mists of time have healed the scars

You climbed that golden stairway to keep our country free

Where the jungle hid your nightmare from the stars

When sullen days brought no relief from blood, muck, and mire

And death was ever striding at your back

You trod that hallowed path to be baptized in hellfire

The ragged bloody heroes of that grim Kokoda track

Oh, the devil took the hindmost and the snipers took the fore

With no quarter asked or given in that muddy, bloody war

With black angels there to guide them, salvoes by their side

Those ragged bloody heroes simply marched and fought and died

Astride a broken mountaintop you stood defiantly

As the devil took your comrades one by one

He taunted you and beckoned you to face eternity

You saluted with a burning Thompson gun

His hand was on your shoulder like a burning grip of steel

But you turned him and you fought off his attack

You broke the devil’s squadrons and you brought him to your heel

The ragged bloody heroes of that grim Kokoda track

Oh, the devil took the hindmost and the snipers took the fore

With no quarter asked or given in that muddy, bloody war

While politicians pondered and great generals swelled with pride

Those ragged bloody heroes simply marched and fought and died

With no shouldered arms or bayonet fixed they march on Anzac Day

With the memory of white crosses, mounds of fresh-turned clay

Of green fields and a bugle call and a solemn requiem

And at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them

Those ragged bloody heroes of that grim Kokoda track

Those ragged bloody heroes of that grim Kokoda track