Voices of Silence (25 page)

So, his colour comes and goes,

And he gives a thought to those

Who are trusting to his skill and honour bright;

He reckons he is
there
,

And he doesn’t turn a hair,

Though he knows he’s in the bowels of the fight.

By the churning of the screw

He gets a kind o’ clew

That they’re jinking all they can the submarines;

For below the water-line

He can tap the secret sign,

And he has a pretty inkling what it means.

He trusts the Bridge above,

And he thinks but little of

The dangers that beset him in his den;

The signals tell him some,

And he’s sure there’s more to come –

What, the worst? Well, it happens to all men!

And so, within his cage,

Oil-spray and pressure-gauge

And drone of turbine occupy his mind;

He doesn’t see the show,

But this we surely know,

He’s the bravest man of any you can find!

John Hogben

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 green

Came 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!
’

John G. Bower

The silent fleet that braved the North Sea tempests,

The submarines, the snow and fog and spray,

Through sleepless nights and weary months of waiting,

Spoke with its guns to-day.

Sir David Beatty’s cruisers did discover

The presence of a German force at sea;

Where by the verdict of the British nation

It had no right to be.

He first engaged a battle-cruiser squadron,

Which showed unusual eagerness to fight;

For in support their naval strength was gathered

To challenge Britain’s might.

The only anxious thoughts that troubled Beatty

Were lest they should escape the British fleet;

Though fresh divisions soon his foes had doubled,

He scorned to bid retreat.

More fiercely raged the fight as other units

Out of the mists appeared on either side;

Great German battleships into the conflict

Were flung to turn the tide.

On either side proud ships were seen to stagger,

Then disappear beneath the waves in flame.

To Beatty by o’erwhelming foes imperiled

Our super-dreadnoughts came.

The ‘Warspite’, ‘Valiant’, ‘Barham’ and ‘Malaya’:

What cheers for hard pressed comrades bravely ring;

What deeper voices to that stern engagement

Their mighty weapons bring.

Another cloud loomed dark o’er the horizon,

Like growing storm, ’Twas Jellicoe’s grand fleet;

Before its deadly hail and wrathful thunders

The German ships retreat.

Darkness shut down with mist upon the ocean:

Such dreadful night the sea had never known;

But in the wild mêlée the British triumph,

The foe is overthrown.

G.B. Warren

Our country’s pride,

Sea-Huns we are;

Our time we bide –

Then woe betide

The British tar!

The foeman’s fate

And doom are sealed;

Within our gate

We lie in wait.

Britain shall yield!

Hail to the Day!

Let them come forth –

Hun mines shall slay

Their hated prey

In righteous wrath!

Then shall we sail

To Britain’s shore;

The fist of mail

Shall make her quail

And death outpour!

Till even she

Proclaim our worth,

And we shall be

Lords of the sea

And of the earth!

In 1916

By luck, again

Safe back to port!

The heaving main

Strewn with our slain,

The battle fought.

In peril’s throes

Home course we shaped;

A mist arose

And from our foes

We just escaped.

Once more we hide

At anchor here,

While they with pride

The ocean ride

Both far and near.

The longed for Day –

A bubble burst!

Our land’s dismay

We did allay,

Nor told the worst.

In victory’s guise

Was failure clad;

So through deft lies

Our nation wise

Is falsely glad.

Once more, with hate,

Britain to brave

We watch and wait.

By cursed fate

She rules the wave.

Von Tirpitz was an admiral, his beard flew bold and free,

He called up all his captains and ‘My gallant lads’, quoth he,

‘The day has come, ten thousand “Hochs”, and though I stay at home

My spirit will be with you. Now prepare to brave the foam!’

The captains tried with one accord to raise a pleasant grin,

Yet each one wondered when and how the trouble would begin;

Their ships they put in dry dock, had the barnacles removed,

While by the aid of countless ‘steins’ the outlook they improved.

‘What ho, my merry mariners!’ said Tirp. one day in May,

‘Art ready now to sweep the sea and end Britannia’s day?

Has each of you his Iron Cross, and flannel next his skin?’

With one accord they answered ‘Ja!’ ‘Gut! now we can begin!’

So Tirpitz crept unto the gate, and peered out o’er the sea,

While gravely muttering in his beard, ‘I’d rather you than me!’

‘The coast is clear’, he shouted back, ‘make haste, ‘The Day’ is here!’

Then shut the gate behind them, and consoled himself with beer.

When on his homeward way he paused, this master of the gales,

And drove into his statue half a ton of six inch nails;

‘Hoch! hoch!’ quoth he, ‘now I must go and write up my report

Of this, our greatest victory, and lessons it has taught.’

So he and Wolff sat down to think, and soon one came to see

The mighty German fleet had won a glorious victory,

So ‘Wire the news around at once, the time is getting short,

The world must have our story ere our ships get back to port.’

Then back went Tirp. to Kiel again, and peeping through the gate

He saw some ships returning in a mighty flurried state,

‘What’s this?’ he cried, behind his beard his face was turning pale,

And straightway to this statue went and drove another nail.

‘Ho! ho! my gallant lads’, quoth he, ‘why make such frantic haste?

You come as though by devils chased, and little time to waste.’

The pale and shaky captains muttered through their chattering teeth,

‘We’ve won a great big vic’try, all the foe is underneath.’

‘If that is so,’ quoth Tirpitz, ‘why this frantic need to haste,

Why not remain and glut on joys of which you’ve had a taste,

Why leave the field of victory whose laurels wreath your hair?’

‘Well, to be honest ’twas because the British fleet was there.’

‘Oh well!’ said Tirp., ‘the glorious news is speeding on its way,

And ’twill be known the whole world o’er ere breaks another day;

If we can’t win by ships and guns we can at least by tales.’

And then into his statue drove another ton of nails.

For God and king, for country and for right,

The sons of Britain’s far-extending sway

Flock to the flag, the patriot’s debt to pay

For freedom’s gift, against satanic might!

And thus, where all were heroes in the fight

Against a foe who long had sought ‘the Day’,

A boy stands nobly in the blinding spray

Of sea and shot – one more example bright!

Erstwhile some said the spirit of our race

Was dead through love of gold and gilded toys,

Unfit to hold the realms our fathers won.

The sailor child stands steadfast in his place,

His life-blood ebbing – type of British boys;

The Nelson breed is proud of such a son.

Thomas Hannan

Earth held thee not, whom now the gray seas hold,

By the blue Cyclades, and even the sea

Palls but the mortal, for men’s hearts enfold,

Inviolate, the untamed youth of thee.

Frederic Manning

If death must claim him, let the North Sea wave

Hold him; though tombless he shall sleep content;

Proud, o’er the mists that cloak her Great Man’s grave

England, transfigured, stands – his Monument.

Charles T. Foxcroft

When Churchill ran the naval show

He was extremely optimistic,

And, in referring to the foe,

Inclined at times to be hubristic.

But when the limelight’s genial beams

No more their influence exerted,

The spirit of his naval dreams

Incontinently was inverted.

And critics did not fail to note

That while he ruled the British Navy

His motto was, ‘All’s well afloat’,

And only when he left it, ‘
Cave
!’

With a
beau geste
he left the House

And flounced off to the Front in Flanders,

But soon returned to carp and grouse

Against our land and sea commanders.

And now, resorting to the pen

With pompous self-exalting prattle,

He dares to criticize the men

Who fought and won the Jutland battle.

Prophet by turns of good and ill,

Oh long may he remain a stranger

To office, who by tongue and quill

Has proved himself a public danger!

C.L. Graves

Yes! Daddy knows right well, my lad,

The story of the fleet

That met the Huns off Coney Isle

In Hipper’s great defeat.

I served a twelve-inch gun, my lad,

Upon the gallant
ARK
,

And fought the fight without respite

From early dawn till dark.

We left our base the year before,

And steamed at forty knots,

Until we heard the cry of ‘smoke’

And saw them there in spots.

Aye, there they were at twenty yards,

A thousand ships in line;

We opened first when ‘mess-gear’ went

And sank them all by nine.

Yes! Daddy was right there, my lad,

He served a five-inch gun,

And all alone killed Kaiser Bill,

Before the war was won.

Eugene E. Wilson