At the end of a long battle everyone is overjoyed to be going home, relief is overwhelming, but there's a terrible sadness too.
Lyrics
‘Gather round’, the sergeant said,
Battered tin hat on his head,
We’ve got orders to march to the old beachhead,
We’re going home.
And a cheer went up in that battleground,
There was smiling faces all around,
And we packed our gear with what strength we found
We were going home.
14 weeks in that awful place
Drained the colour from your face
Your whole world crammed in a tiny space
But now we’re going home
And in the dawn when the trucks arrived
We wondered how anyone could survive
But we thanked the lord we were still alive
To be going home
Our spirits were high; we could laugh and joke,
No more bullets, or bombs or smoke,
Then suddenly silence and no one spoke,
Though we were going home
In no mans land in the clinging mud,
A silhouette of the sergeant stood
And our heads all bowed as his shoulders shook
For friends not going home