we' re foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over africa
we' re foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over africa foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin' over africa- chorus boots-boots-boots-boots movin' up and down again- there's no discharge in the war! 7, 6, 11, 5, 9, and 20 miles today 4, 11, 17, 32, the daay before-- don't, don't, don't don't look at what's in front of you! men, men, men, men, men, go mad with watching them-- try, try, try, try, to think of something different;
 oh-my-god!-keep- me- from- going- lunatic! count, count, count, count, the bullets in the bandoliers;
 if-your-eyes-drop-, they-will-get-on-top-of-you-- we-can-stick-out-hunger, thirst, and weariness;
 but not-not-not-not-not the chronic sight of 'em-- tain't-so-bad-by-day because of company;
 but-night-brings-strings-of-40,000 million- i-have-marched-6-weeks-in-hell- and certify;
 it-is-not-devils, dark, or anything-- -----------------------------------------------------
rudyard kipling wrote this song, and is, like all his material, published as a poem-this one in his 'barracks room ballads'.
 kipling, says his mate, chesterton, I think, wrote all his poetry with a specific tune in mind, to set the meter for the poetry: the tune he had in mind when he wrote boots is john brown's body.
 most folk music people that are aware of kiplings poetry are mostly aware of them in the settings that british singer peter bellamy pu to them--which were his own tunes, rather than the tunes kipling himself had in mind at the time.
 whether of foot or on horseback, as most of the australian troops were in the boer war, this song most accurately describes the daily course of events once 'black week',
and then the capture of the boer capitols were completed and the de wet hunts, the guerilla warfare started--with this constant grind was also the constant fear of immediate attack.