On Patrol

STONEWALL JACKSON

OVER the low Virginian farms the smoke of the ev'ning rose and flowed,The scent of cedar hung in the air – the scent of burning sap,And up the valley the murmur died, the sound of feet on a dusty road —A clatter and ring of horse and guns that led to Ashby's Gap.And the Blue Ridge called to the Shenandoah stream,As the Massanutton hills grew black —"Look your last, Shenandoah – where the bayonets gleam,On your man who is never coming back."Ah! Manassas, look again on the glimmer of the steelThat you lit with the red fires' glow,When the Grey men roared at an all-night meal,Look again as the Grey men go."He is looking back at us with a hand across his eyes,Look your last, Shenandoah, as he ridesTo a death beyond the Gap where the dust-clouds rise,O'er the road that the greenwood hides."He will send a message back as the dark clouds lower,And you'll hear it in the sighing of the breeze,Let us pass across the river (can you hear me, Shenandoah?)To a rest in the shadow of the trees."

WET SHIPS

"… And will remain on your Patrol till the 8th December…" – (Extract from Orders.)THE North-East Wind came armed and shod from the ice-locked Baltic shore,The seas rose up in the track he made, and the rollers raced before;He sprang on the Wilhelmshaven ships that reeled across the tide."Do you cross the sea to-night with me?" the cold North-Easter cried —Along the lines of anchored craft the Admiral's answer flashed,And loud the proud North-Easter laughed as the second anchors splashed."By God! you're right – you German men, with a three-day gale to blow,It is better to wait by your harbour gate than follow where I go!"Over the Bight to the open sea the great wind sang as he sheered:"I rule – I rule the Northern waste – I speak, and the seas are cleared;You nations all whose harbours ring the edge of my Northern sea,At peace or war, when you hear my voice you shall know no Lord but me."Then into the wind in a cloud of foam and sheets of rattling spray,Head to the bleak and breaking seas in dingy black and grey,Taking it every lurch and roll in tons of icy greenCame out to her two-year-old patrol – an English submarine.The voice of the wind rose up and howled through squalls of driving white:"You'll know my power, you English craft, before you make the Bight;I rule – I rule this Northern Sea, that I raise and break to foam.Whom do you call your Overlord that dares me in my home?"Over the crest of a lifting sea in bursting shells of spray,She showed the flash of her rounded side as over to port she lay,Clanging her answer up the blast that made her wireless sing:"I serve the Lord of the Seven Seas. Ha! Splendour of God – the King!!"Twenty feet of her bow came out, dripping and smooth it sprang,Over the valley of green below as her stamping engines rang;Then down she fell till the waters rose to meet her straining rails —"I serve my King, who sends me here to meet your winter gales."(Rank upon rank the seas swept on and broke to let her through,While high above her reeling bridge their shattered remnants flew);"If you blow the stars from the sky to-night, your boast in your teeth I'll fling,I am your master – Overlord, and – Dog of the English King!"

THAT BLINKIN' CAT

(Late of H.M.S. Maidstone.)IN the Diving-room, where theO.O.D.6 his weary vigil keeps,Battered and scarred with years of strife behind the door she sleeps,Fighting her battles o'er again as ancient warriors may,With bristling fur as she dreams anew of many a noble fray.Savage and Silent,Swift in the onslaughtAs the great eagleStoops to the victim;Guard of the Gangway,Dreadful – prolific,Mother of hundreds,Terrier-Strafer,Messenger-biter.Hail to the guard of the Maidstone's Gangway – Skoal!Sing of the day the air was full of words like "Alabaster,"When she ate a piece of the Corporal's hand and bit the Quartermaster;The day she fought with an Airedale dog and drove him back to shore —For the sake of her sixty little ones, she fought – and had some more.Faithful and loyal,Guard of the Gangway,Turning the dogs back —Yelping and howling.Biting her masters —Corporals – any oneFiercely domestic,Easily queen of —Pugnacious obstetrics —Motherly War.Hail to the terror and pride of the Maidstone– Skoal!!Sing of the day she won the fray with a new "Pandora" dog,And the Quartermaster shone with pride as he entered in the log:"At 10 P.M. we dowsed our pipes and drew the Nettle's fires,At 10.15 six births aboard – that blinkin' cat of ours!"

1797

OUR brothers of the landward sideAre bound by Church and stall,By Councils Œcumenical,By Gothic arches tall;But we who know the cold grey sea,The salt and flying spray,We praise the Lord in our fathers' way,In the simple faith of the sea we pray,To the God that the winds and waves obeyWho sailed on Galilee.We pray as the Flag-Lieutenant prayed,At St Vincent's cabin door(Twenty sail of the line in view —South-West by South they bore):"O Lord of Hosts, I praise Thee now,And bow before Thy might,Who has given us fingers and hands to fight,And twenty ships of the line in sight;Thou knewest, O Lord, and placed them right —To leeward, on the bow."

AFTER THE WAR

THAT far-off day when Peace is signed (and all the papers say —"A most important by-election starts at Kew to-day;We urge our readers one and all to loyally supportThe Independent Candidate – Count Katzenjammerdordt")Will change a lot of little things – perhaps we'll get some leave,And hear a yarn of extra pay, which no one will believe;The salvage ships will hurry out, two thousand wrecks to find,The monuments to Kultur that the Huns have left behind.We'll watch the sweepers put to sea ten million mines to seek,And – Patrol Flotilla Exercise will start within a week;Someone Big will say to Someone: "Time for work and time for play,(Rub his hands together briskly) We'll commence the work to-day;They have had their fun and fighting, and they must be getting slack,Stop all leave and start manœuvres – for the good old times are back."Then destroyers and torpedo-boats and submarines and oilersWill receive a little notice headed "Maintenance of Boilers,""To economise in fuel while the ships are out at seaEach pound of steam will count as two, and every knot as three."We'll have the old manœuvre Rules to show us what to do."I rose within two thousand yards and have torpedoed you,"My counter-claim is obvious – to port you must retire,""I sank you with a Maxim gun just as you rose to fire."Ships will carry navigation lights – "Precautionary Measure,""An infringement of this solemn rule incurs My Lords' Displeasure."Yes, the after-war manœuvres will be fearful to behold,Not been held since nineteen – ("half a minute, surely you've been told"),Hush, you'll get me into trouble ("it was eighteen months ago —And the whole Grand Fleet was in it – I was there, I ought to know:Red Fleet to start from Helgoland and Blue from Udsire Light,To meet in sixty-twenty North and have a morning fight.No ship should cross a line between the Jahde and Amrum Bank,But should a German flag be seen (unless of junior rank),No captain can do very wrong who indicates by guns —We won't have our manœuvres spoilt by interfering Huns.Perhaps the wording isn't right, perhaps it isn't true,But we've got to have manœuvres when there's nothing else to do.")And when the Censor fades away and leaves the presses clearFor all the "Truths about the War," by "One who has no fear,"And all the "Contract Scandals," by "A Clerk behind the Door,"The book I want to see in print is "Humours of the War,"Though I fear the other Censor (Morals, Cinemas, and Vice)Would expurgate the best of them as being hardly nice;Still, even with the cream suppressed a volume could be filledWith the epigrams of killing and the jokes of being killed,With a preface by the officer we rescued from the wave,When a cloud of steam and lyddite smoke lay o'er the "Bluecher's" grave,Who, as the bowmen fished him out and passed him aft to dry,Read the name upon their ribbons with a twinkle in his eye,And said: "A Westo ship, I think – I guess my luck is in,I'm sick of German substitutes – now for some Plymouth gin."And a picture of the sailor in a certain submarine,Which was diving through the waters where the sweepers hadn't been,And who heard a muffled bumping noise that passed along the side —A noise that many men have heard an instant ere they died;And broke the silence following the last appalling thudWith "Good old ruddy Kaiser! there's another bloomin' dud!"There's a story too of Jutland, or perhaps another show,When the cruisers and destroyers had a meeting with the foe;And as the range was closing, and they waited for the word,From a sailor at an after-gun the following was heard:"It isn't that that turns me up – 'e's not the only one" —But then the roar of ranging guns – the action had begun —And for twenty awful minutes there was undiluted hell,With flame and steam and cordite smoke and high-explosive shell.Then as the bugle-call rang out, the savage fire to check,The loading numbers wiped their brows and looked around the deck:"As I was saying," came the voice, "before this row began,I think 'e should 've married 'er – if 'e'd bin 'alf a man."

LOW VISIBILITY

We sailed from the sand-isles,In Sea Hawk and Dragon,Over the White Water,War-ready all of us.Soon came the sea-mist,Soft was the wind then,Lay there the long-ships,Lifting and falling.Then cried the Captain:"Cold is the sea-fog,Weary is waiting-time,Wet are the byrnies;Burnish the breastplates,Broadswords and axes!Hand we the horns round,Hail to the Dragon!"OUR gentle pirate ancestors from off the Frisian IslesKept station where we now patrol so many weary miles:There were no International Laws of Hall or Halleck then,They only knew the simple rule of "Death to beaten men."And what they judged a lawful prize was any sail they sawFrom Scarboro' to the sandy isles along the Saxon shore.We differ from our ancestors' conception of a prize,And we cruise about like Agag 'neath Sir Samuel Evans' eyes;But on one eternal subject we would certainly agree:It's seldom you can see a mile across the Northern sea,For as the misty clouds came down and settled wet and cold,The sodden halliards creaked and strained as to the swell they rolled.Each yellow-bearded pirate knew beyond the veil of whiteThe prize of all the prizes must be passing out of sight;And drearily they waited while metheglin in a skinWas passed along the benches, and the oars came sliding in;Then scramasax and battleaxe were polished up anew,And they waited for the fog to lift, the same as me and you;Though we're waiting on the bottom at the twenty fathom line,We are burnishing torpedoes to a Sunday morning shine.The sailor pauses as he quaffs his tot of Navy rum,And listens to a noise that drowns the circulator's hum:"D'y 'ear those blank propellers, Bill —the blinking female dog—That's Tirpitz in the 'Indenburg gone past us in the fog!"

HANG ON

TWO o' the morn, and a rising sea, I'd like to ease to slow,But we're off on a stunt and pressed for time, so I reckon it's Eastward Ho!So pick up your skirts and hustle along, old woman, you've got to go —Look-out, you fool. Hang on!Up she comes on a big grey sea and winks at the misty moon,Then down the hill like a falling lift, we're due for a beauty soon;And here it comes – she'll be much too late – yes, damn it, she's out of tune —Look-out, you fool. Hang on!You can feel her shake from stem to stern with the crash of her plunging bow,And quiver anew to the thrusting screw, and the booming engines' row;Then rah-rah-rah on a rising note – my oath, they're racing now —Look-out, you fool. Hang on!The streaky water rushes by as the crest of the sea goes past,And you see her hull from the hydroplanes to the heel of her wireless mastStand out and hang as she leaps the trough to dive at the next one – Blast – !Look-out, you fool. Hang on!In the hollow between she stops for breath, then starts her climb anew —"I can see your guns and wireless mast, old girl, but I can't see you,And you'd better be quick and lift again – she won't, she's diving through" —Look-out, you fool. Hang on!The Lord be thanked, it's my relief – Cheer up, old sport, it's clean;No, just enough to wash your face – you could hardly call it green;A jolly good sea-boat this one is, at least, for a submarine —Look-out, you fool. Hang on!

TO FRITZ

I wish that I could be a Hun, to dive about the sea —I wouldn't go for merchantmen, a man-of-war for me;There are lots of proper targets for attacking, little Fritz,But you seem to like the merchantmen, and blowing them to bits.I suppose it must be easy fruit to get an Iron CrossBy strafing sail and cargo ships – but don't you feel the lossOf the wonderful excitement when you face a man-of-war,And tearing past you overhead the big propellers roar?When you know that it's a case of "May the fish run good and true,"For if they don't it's ten to one it's R.I.P. for you?Although perhaps you can't be blamed – your motives may be pure —You're rather new to submarines – in fact, an amateur;But we'd like to take your job awhile and show you how it's done,And leave you on the long patrol to wait your brother Hun.You wouldn't like the job, my lad – the motors turning slow,You wouldn't like the winter-time – storm and wind and snow;You'd find it weary waiting, Fritz – unless your faith is strong —Up and down on the long patrol – How long, O Lord, how long?We don't patrol for merchant ships, there's none but neutrals there,Up and down on the old patrol, you can hear the E-boat's prayer:"Give us a ten-knot breeze, O Lord, with a clear and blazing sky,And help our eyes at the periscope as the High Sea Fleet goes by."

TO THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS

LAND of sorrow – war and weeping,Granite rock and falling snow,Where Romance is never sleeping,Where the fires of freedom glow.Where the spark has never died, be the cause however lost,Be the breath however humble that would fan it to a flame;From the shieling, from the castle, did they ever count the costEre they went to meet a rebel's death and perished for a name?While England learnt the Roman tongue and paid her tax to Gaul,The Caledonian tribute clashed along the Roman wall —From East to West the sentinels looked out towards the North —"Amboglanna has sent for aid,For the heather is bright with targe and bladeAway to the silvery Forth."When the Scottish host looked down and scorned to charge the foeThat filed around the fatal hill and crossed the stream below,When the flowers of the forest fell and withered in the fight —"Shoulder to shoulder around the King,Hear the Claymore whistle and singOur funeral song to-night."The English knew it at Prestonpans – the wall against their backs,When down the slope the clansmen came with the long Lochaber axe,The dew on the grass and the morning mist and a roar of charging men, —Pipers playing on either flank —"Steady the volleys, the leading rank!"The fires were blazing then.And the spark has gone to Flanders, as the Prussian butchers know,For they learnt at Loos and Hulluch from the Caledonian swordThe prayer of Anglo-Saxon priests a thousand years ago —"From the fury of the Northern men, deliver us, O Lord."

PRIVILEGED

THEY called across to Peter at the changing of the Guard,At the red-gold Doors that the Angels keep, —"Send us help to the Portal, for they press upon us hard,They are straining at the Gate, many deep."Then Peter rose and went to the wicket by the Wall,Where the Starlight flashed upon the crowd;And he saw a mighty wave from the Greatest Gale of allBreak beneath him with a roar, swelling loud —"Let us in! Let us in! We have left a load of sinOn the battlefield that flashes far below.From the trenches or the sea there's a pass for such as we,For we died with our faces to the foe."We haven't any creed, for we never felt the need,And our morals are as ragged as can be;But we finished in a way that has cleared us of the clay,And we're coming to you clean, as you can see."Then Peter looked below him with a smile upon his lips,And he answered, "Ye are fighters, as I knowBy your badges of the air, of the trenches, and the ships,And the wounds that on your bodies glisten so."And he looked upon the wounds, that were many and were grim,And his glance was all-embracing – unafraid;And he looked to meet the eyes that were smiling up to him,All a-level as a new-forged blade."Ye are savage men and rough – from the fo'c'sle and the tent;Ye have put High Heaven to alarm;But I see it written clear by the road ye went,That ye held by the Fifteenth Psalm."And they shouted in return, "'Tis a thing we've never read,But you passed our friends insideThat won to the end of the road we treadLong ago when the Mons Men died.""Let us in! Let us in! We have fallen for the Right,And the Crown that we listed to win,That we earned by the Somme or the waters of the Bight;You're a fighting man yourself – Let us in!"Then Peter gave a sign and the Gates flung wideTo the sound of a bugle-call:"Pass the fighting men to the ranks inside,Who came from the earth or the cold grey tide,With their heads held high and a soldiers stride,To a Friend in the Judgment Hall."

"OUR ANNUAL"

UP the well-remembered fairway, past the buoys and forts we drifted —Saw the houses, roads, and churches as they were a year ago.Far astern were wars and battles, all the dreary clouds were lifted,As we turned the Elbow Ledges – felt the engines ease to "Slow."Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle —Saw the harbour-tugs around us – smelt the English fields again, —English fields and English hedges – sheep and horses, English cattle,Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.Slowly through the basin entrance – twenty thousand tons a-crawlingWith a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War —Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling —"There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore."Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloamingWith the sailors on the fo'c'sle looking wistfully a-lee —Just another year of waiting – just another year of roamingFor the Majesty of England – for the Freedom of the Sea.

MASCOTS

WHEN the galleys of Phœnicia, through the gates of Hercules,Steered South and West along the coast to seek the Tropic Seas,When they rounded Cape Agulhas, putting out from Table Bay,They started trading North again, as steamers do to-day.They dealt in gold and ivory and ostrich feathers too,With a little private trading by the officers and crew,Till rounding Guardafui, steering up for Aden town,The tall Phœnician Captain called the First Lieutenant down."By all the Tyrian purple robes that you will never wear,By the Temples of Zimbabwe, by King Solomon I swear,The ship is like a stable, like a Carthaginian sty.I am Captain here – confound you! – or I'll know the reason why.Every sailor in the galley has a monkey or a goat;There are parrots in the eyes of her and serpents in the boat.By the roaring fire of Baal, I'll not have it any more:Heave them over by the sunset, or I'll hang you at the fore!""What is that, sir? Not as cargo? Not a bit of private trade?Well, of all the dumbest idiots you're the dumbest ever made,Standing there and looking silly: leave the animals alone."(Sailors with a tropic liver always have a brutal tone.)"By the crescent of Astarte, I am not religious – yet —I would sooner spill the table salt than kill a sailor's pet."

A HYMN OF DISGUST

YOU wrote a pretty hymn of Hate,That won the Kaiser's praise,Which showed your nasty mental state,And made us laugh for days.I can't compete with such as youIn doggerel of mine,But this is certain —and it's true,You bloody-handed swine —We do not mouth a song of hate, or talk about you – much,We do not mention things like you – it wouldn't be polite;One doesn't talk in drawing-rooms of Prussian dirt and such,We only want to kill you off – so roll along and fight.For men like you with filthy minds, you leave a nasty taste,We can't forget your triumphs with the girls you met in France.By your standards of morality, gorillas would be chaste,And you consummate your triumphs with the bayonet and the lance.You give us mental pictures of your officers at play,With naked girls a-dancing on the table as you dine,With their mothers cut to pieces, in the knightly German way,In the corners of the guard-room in a pool of blood and wine.You had better stay in Germany, and never go abroad,For wherever you may wander you will find your fame has gone,For you are outcasts from the lists, with rust upon your sword —The blood of many innocents – of children newly born.You are bestial men and beastly, and we would not ask you homeTo meet our wives and daughters, for we doubt that you are clean;You will find your fame in front of you wherever you may roam,You – who came through burning Belgium with the ladies for a screen.You – who love to hear the screaming of a girl beneath the knife,In the midst of your companions, with their craning, eager necks;When you crown your German mercy, and you take a sobbing life —You are not exactly gentlemen towards the gentle sex.With your rapings in the market-place and slaughter of the weak,With your gross and leering conduct, and your utter lack of shame, —When we note in all your doings such a nasty yellow streak,You show surprise at our disgust, and say you're not to blame.We don't want any whinings, and we'd sooner wait for peaceTill you realise your position, and you know you whine in vain;And you stand within a circle of the Cleaner World's Police,And we goad you into charging – and we clean the world again.For you should know that never shall you meet us as before,That none will take you by the hand or greet you as a friend;So stay with it, and finish it – who brought about the War —And when you've paid for all you've done – well, that will be the End.

A TRINITY

THE way of a ship at racing speedIn a bit of a rising gale,The way of a horse of the only breedAt a Droxford post-and-rail,The way of a brand-new aeroplaneOn a frosty winter dawn.You'll come back to those again;Wheel or cloche or slender reinWill keep you young and clean and sane,And glad that you were born.The power and drive beneath me now are above the power of kings,It's mine the word that lets her loose and in my ear she sings —"Mark now the way I sport and play with the rising hunted sea,Across my grain in cold disdain their ranks are hurled at me;But down my wake is a foam-white lake, the remnant of their line,That broke and died beneath my pride – your foemen, man, and mine."The perfect tapered hull below is a dream of line and curve,An artist's vision in steel and bronze for gods and men to serve.If ever a statue came to life, you quivering slender thing,It ought to be you – my racing girl – as the Amazon song you sing.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Down the valley and up the slope we run from scent to view."Steady, you villain – you know too much – I'm not so wild as you;You'll get me cursed if you catch him first – there's at least a mile to go,So swallow your pride and ease your stride, and take your fences slow.Your high-pricked ears as the jump appears are comforting things to see;Your easy gallop and bending neck are signals flying to me.You wouldn't refuse if it was wire with calthrops down in front,And there we are with a foot to spare – you best of all the Hunt!"Great sloping shoulders galloping strong, and a yard of floating tail,A fine old Irish gentleman, and a Hampshire post-and-rail.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━The sun on the fields a mile below is glinting off the grassThat slides along like a rolling map as under the clouds I pass.The early shadows of byre and hedge are dwindling dark belowAs up the stair of the morning air on my idle wheels I go, —Nothing to do but let her alone – she's flying herself to-day;Unless I chuck her about a bit – there isn't a bump or sway.So there's a bank at ninety-five – and here's a spin and a spiral dive,And here we are again.And that's a roll and twist around, and that's the sky and there's the ground,And I and the aeroplaneAre doing a glide, but upside down, and that's a village and that's a town —And now we're rolling back.And this is the way we climb and stall and sit up and beg on nothing at all,The wires and strainers slack.And now we'll try and be good some more, and open the throttle and hear her roarAnd steer for London Town.For there never a pilot yet was born who flew a machine on a frosty mornBut started stunting soon,To feel if his wires were really there, or whether he flewon ice or air,Or whether his hands were gloved or bare,Or he sat in a free balloon.