McAlpine's Fusiliers Lyrics

As down the glen came McAlpine's men With their shovels slung behind them 'Twas in the pub that they drank their sub And up on the the spike you'll find them They sweated blood and they washed down mud With pints and quarts of beer And now we're on the road again With McAlpine's Fusiliers I stripped to the skin with Darky Finn Way down upon the Isle of Grain With Horseface Toole sure we new the rule No money if you stopped for rain For McAlpine's god was a well filled hod With your shoulders cut to bits and seared And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpine's Fusiliers I remember the day that the Bear O'Shea Fell into a concrete stairs What Horseface said, when he saw him dead It wasn't what the rich call prayers 'I'm a navvy short' was his one retort That reached unto my ears When the going is rough, ah you must be tough With McAlpine's Fusiliers I've worked till the sweat it had me bet With Russian, Czech and Pole At shuttering jams up in the hydro dams Or underneath the Thames in a hole I grafted hard and I've got me cards And many a ganger's fist across me ears If you pride your life, don't join, by Christ, With McAlpine's Fusiliers.