John Bower - On Patrol

THEY watch us leaving harbour for the greatest game of all,
And wonder if we're coming back across the greedy sea;
They never know the fighting thrill or high adventure's call —
I rather think the women folk are better men than we.
But I suspect they say of us as out to sea we go,
In all our panoply of pride from Orkney to the Nore:
"It keeps them quiet, we suppose – they like the work, we know —
And soon perhaps they'll tire and play some safer game than War."

HE went to sea on the long patrol,
Away to the East from the Corton Shoal,
But now he's overdue.
He signalled me as he bore away
(A flickering lamp through leaping spray,
And darkness then till judgment day),
"So long! Good luck to you!"

He's waiting out on the long patrol,
Till the names are called at the muster-roll
Of seamen overdue.
Far above him, in wind and rain,
Another is on patrol again —
The gap is closed in the Naval Chain
Where all the links are new.

Over his head the seas are white,
And the wind is blowing a gale to-night,
As if the Storm-King knew,
And roared a ballad of sleet and snow
To the man that lies on the sand below,
A trumpet-song for the winds to blow
To seamen overdue.

Was it sudden or slow – the death that came?
Roaring water or sheets of flame?
The end with none to view?
No man can tell us the way he died,
But over the clouds Valkyries ride
To open the gates and hold them wide
For seamen overdue.

But whether the end was swift or slow,
By the Hand of God, or a German blow,
My messmate overdue —
You went to Death – and the whisper ran
As over the Gates the horns began,
Splendour of God! We have found a man —
Good-bye! Good luck to you!

FAINT against the twilight, dim against the evening,
Fading into darkness against the lapping sea,
She sailed away from harbour, from safety into danger,
The ship that took him from me – my sailor boy from me.

He went away to join her, from me that loved and bore him,
Loved him ere I bore him, that was all the world to me.
"No time for leave, mother, must be back this evening,
Time for our patrol again, across the winter sea."

Six times over, since he went to join her,
Came he to see me, to run back again.
"Four hours' leave, mother – still got the steam up,
Going on patrol to-night – the old East lane."

"Seven times lucky, and perhaps we'll have a battle,
Then I'll bring a medal back and give it you to keep."
And his name is in the paper, with close upon a hundred,
Who lie there beside him, many fathom deep.

And beside him in the paper, somebody is writing,
– God! but how I hate him – a liar and a fool, —
"Where is the British Navy – is it staying in the harbours?
Has the Nelson spirit in the Fleet begun to cool?"

ARE the prices high and taxes stiff, is the prospect sad and dark?
Have you seen your capital dwindle down as low as the German mark?
Do you feel your troubles around you rise in an endless dreary wall?
Well – thank your God you were born in time for the Greatest War of all.

It will be all right in a thousand years – you won't be bankrupt then.
This isn't the time of stocks and shares, it's just the age of men.
The one that sticks it out will win – so don't lie down and bawl,
But thank your God you've helped to win the noblest War of all.

Away to the East in Flanders' mud, through Dante's dream of Hell,
The troops are working hard for peace with bayonet, bomb, and shell,
With poison gas and roaring guns beneath a smoking pall;
Yes – thank your God your kin are there – the finest troops of all.

You may be stripped of all you have – it may be all you say,
But you'll have your life and eyesight left, so stow your talk of pay.
You won't be dead in a bed of lime with those that heard the Call;
So thank your God you've an easy job in the Greatest War of all.

It isn't the money that's going to count when the Flanders' men return,
And a shake of your hand from Flanders' men is a thing you've got to earn.
Just think how cold it's going to be in the Nation's Judgment Hall;
So damn your troubles and find your soul in the Greatest War of all!

THE last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too —
Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge —
Lost at the Beresina Bridge,
When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was charging through.

Ultima Ratio Regis, we – but he who has may hold,
Se curantes Dei curant,
Hear the gunners that strain and pant,
As when before the rising gale the Great Armada rolled.

Guns of fifty – sixty tons that roared at Jutland fight ,
Clatter and clang of hoisting shell;
See the flame where the salvo fell
Amidst the flash of German guns against the wall of white.

The sons of English carronade or Spanish culverin —
The Danish windows shivered and broke
When over the sea the children spoke,
And groaning turrets rocked again as we went out and in.

We have no passions to call our own, we work for serf or lord,
Load us well and sponge us clean —
Be your woman a slave or queen —
And we will clear the road for you who hold us by the sword.

We come into our own again and wake to life anew —
Put your paper and pens away,
For the whole of the world is ours to-day,
And we shall do the talking now to smooth the way for you.

Howitzer gun or Seventy-five, the game is ours to play,
And hills may quiver and mountains shake,
But the line in front shall bend or break.
What is it to us if the world is mad? For we are the Kings to-day.

WHEN all the guns are sponged and cleaned, and fuzes go to store,
when all the wireless stations cry – "come home, you ships of war" —
"come home again and leave patrol, no matter where you be."
We'll see the lights of England shine,
Flashing again on the steaming line,
As out of the dark the long grey hulls come rolling in from sea.

The long-forgotten lights will shine and gild the clouds ahead,
Over the dark horizon-line, across the dreaming dead
That went to sea with the dark behind and the spin of a coin before.
Mark the gleam of Orfordness,
Showing a road we used to guess,
From the Shetland Isles to Dover cliffs – the shaded lane of war.

Up the channel with gleaming ports will homing squadrons go,
And see the English coast alight with headlands all aglow
With thirty thousand candle-power flung up from far Gris-nez.
Portland Bill and the Needles' Light —
Tompions back in the guns to-night —
For English lights are meeting French across the Soldiers' Way.