By Nancy DeLong

Half a league half a league, 1.5 miles
Half a league onward,
All in the hills and valley
Rode the two hundred:
‘Forward, the Bike Brigade!
Charge for the rest stops he said:
Onto the Hole in wall Gang Camp
Rode the two hundred.

Half a league half a league, 1.5 miles
Half a league onward,
All in the hills and valley
Rode the two hundred:

‘Forward, the Bike Brigade!
Charge for the rest stops he said:
Onto the Hole in wall Gang Camp
Rode the two hundred.

‘Forward, the bike Brigade!’
Was there a person dismay’d?
Not tho’ the bikers knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to petal & fly,
Into the Ashford Camp
Rode the two hundred.

Plunged in the sweat soaked shirts
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Local and foreigner
Reel’d from the petal-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode onward
Almost all of the two hundred.

Sag wagons to right of them,
moto to the left of them,
poop out pick up behind them
petaled’d and thunder’d;
They that had biked so well
Came thro’ the jaws of killer hills,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of two hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the bike Brigade,
Noble two hundred!