We've been puzzling over who the anonymous composer, or composers, of this World War 1 ditty was:

A Chant of Army Cooks

WE never were made to be seen on parade
When sweethearts and such line the streets,
When the band starts to blare look for us. We ain't there;
We're mussing around with the eats.
It's fun to step out to the echoing shout
Of a crowd that forgets how you're fed,
While we're soiling our duds hacking eyes out of spuds
You know what Napoleon said.

When the mess sergeant's gay it's the opposite way
With the boys who are standing in line;
When the boys get a square then the sergeant is there
With your death-warrant ready to sign.
If you're long on the grub then you're damned for a dub,
If you're short you're a miser instead.
But however you feel you must get the next meal
You know what Napoleon said.

You think it's a cinch when it comes to the clinch
For the man who is grinding the meat;
In the heat of the fight, why, the cook's out of sight
With plenty of room to retreat.
But a plump of a shell in a kitchen is hell,
When the roof scatters over your head,
And you crawl on your knees to pick up the K.P.'s-
You know what Napoleon said.

If the war ever ends we'll go home to our friends
(In the army we've nary a one)
We'll list to the prattle of this or that battle,
And then when the story is done
We'll say, when they ask, "Now what was your task,
And what is the glory you shed?"
"You see how they thrive, well, we kept 'em alive!
You know what Napoleon said."

Submitted by Private John T. Winterich,

Headquarters Detachment Air Service,
Z. of A.

Notes:

From Great Poems of the World War, edited by W. D. Eaton, Chicago: T.S. Denison & Company, 1922, p. 66.

There are many specialist references within this piece that would indicate it was truly written by an old soldier:

Get a square - On early sailing ships sailors would be served on square wooden plates which were easy to stow away safely. Marine soldiers carried on board ship would pick up the term square meal in this way.

Napoleon is famous for saying "an army marches on its stomach"

KP is often thought of as an abbreviation of Kitchen Patrol or Kitchen Punishment and is an oft used military expression for a punishment duty. In this sense police has its old meaning of watching or cleaning. So picking up the KPs means collecting those on this "extra duty."

The use of the word gay is also old fashioned, meaning blithe or happy and does not hold its modern sexual meaning here.

We've tried our best to track this one through various World War 1 anthologies and web searches but we can't pin a composer down. It seems to us that the composer was working in the Music Hall tradition and that it's the kind of song that might commemorate some long forgotten special event.

We would appreciate any leads.

Jim Saville and Charley Noble