The Song of Billy Sing

In 1914 Billy Sing heard the rallying bugle's call Our last man and shilling it will be our country's all They needed more recruits and wanted them all true blue But he had a Chinese father's blood flowing in his veins too And Australia was firmly one with their White policy school But good shots were needed so they broke this unbreakable rule He joined the 4th Light Horse to Turkey's Fatal Shore When Billy's skill as a sniper came to a deadly fore He gave no quarter and 300 Turk's were made a martyr Then the Turks chose Abdul with Billy as his terrible charter Their battle raged but in the end there would only be but one Billy's deadly eye meant Abdul's life was finally done Billy's reputation reached up to Sir Ian Hamilton's sight He called him a cold blooded killer no mercy in his fight Hamilton made sure his work at Anzac meant a DCM But par otitis and mumps meant this battlefield's end Hospitalized at Malta, then Ismaïlia, Egypt his next bit Then to the 31st Battalion he was transferred by his writ To the Western Front and the war raging in all its fury His battle was in support of his mates as his deadly duty They thought of him as a cold blooded killer with no equal His service meant other wounds with gas as a terrible sequel In the end the doctor's final judgement call was truly made Billy was no long fit for his calling for his soldier's trade Back to Australia at the end of the Great War as his reward But there was no happiness in his life that he could now afford His marriage broken and a soldier's farm had not succeeded His life was only short in a boarding house finally completed Now a bronze plaque holding his deeds high has been erected An ANZAC Hero and Chinese Australian will always be remembered. © Paul Warren Poetry