Convoy Rolling
Along a winding city street
The dusty convoys roll,
Across the downs a laden fleet
Is roaring to its goal;
We’re hauling bombs that will defeat
The Hun; we take our toll.

The boys who roll bomb laden trucks
Through blinding English fog
Or claw their way in six wheel drive
Across the Burma bog
With nothing for protection
From the strafing bombers’ dive
Are just as much our heroes
As the boys who lead the drive.

Have we ever tasted battle?
Do we lose our share of men?
Our dead line Stuka Valley
On the road to Kasserine!

Do we stop for mud or mountain?
Do we need the Engineers?
We build our road and flat-top
Where there are no Hairy Ears!

What if the map is hopeless
And the fog as grey as slate?
We roll those trucks on schedule
For the Bomber Boys can’t wait!

It takes more than being reckless,
It takes more than gift of gab,
When there’s five tons of explosive
Riding right behind the cab

And that box of fuses sitting
Right beside you on the seat;
But “Operations” doesn’t give
Its medals to this fleet!

So we do our job in silence
Giving service to the line,
We roll by day, we roll by night,
We roll come rain or shine

And when the road’s a target?
Rack’er back and let’er buck!
Through hell and high explosive
Rolls the Quartermaster Truck!

Then when we’re through to “Bomber”
We can stop and take a rest,
Behind the wheel as like as not-
May “Operations” be unblessed!

And we dream of trucker’s heaven
Where the wheeling convoys roll
On paving blocks of marble,
Where there is no mud or toll

Where the Jerry planes are never
And the highway’s broad and straight,
Just dynamite that throttle
And we’ll highball through the gate!

Till we wake to hit the trailway
And shuttle back for more,
Ours is a job that’s never done;
Until the war is o’er
We’re in there rolling with the punch-
The Quartermaster Corps!

— Grady L. McMurtry
4/6/44 e.v.

Note: Originally published in Thelema Lodge Calendar, November 1992.