The Men who sail below
The Men Who Sail Below
Now each of us, from time to time, has gazed upon the sea,
and watched the warships pulling out, to keep the country free.
And most of us have read a book, or heard a lousy tale,
about the men who sail these ships, through lightning wind and hail. But there’s a place within each ship that legend fails to teach.
It's down below the water line, and takes an awful toll,
a red hot metal living hell, that sailors call the hole.
It houses engines run by steam, that make the shafts go round,
a place of fire, noise and heat, that beats your spirit down. Where threat from the fires roar, is like living in doubt,
that any moment, would with scorn, escape and crush you out,
and boilers with their hellish heat, and blood of angry steam, are moulded gods without remorse and nightmares in a dream, where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell..
The men who keep the fires lit and make the engines run,
are strangers to the world of night, and rarely see the sun. They have no time for man nor beast, no tolerance for fear,
their aspect pays no living thing the tribute of a tear.
For there's not much that men can do, that these men haven't done, below the decks, deep in the hole, to make those engines run. And every hour of every day they keep their watch in hell,
for if the fires ever fail, their ship's a useless shell.
When warships meet to have a war, upon an angry sea,
the men below just grimly smile at what their fate might be.
Turned too below, like men fore-doomed, they hear no battle cry,
it's well assumed that if they're hit, the men below will die.
For every day's a war down there, when the gauges all read red,
six hundred pounds of heated steam will kill you mighty dead. So if you ever write their song or try to tell their tale,
your very words will make you hear, a fired furnace wail.
Now people as a general rule, don't hear of men of steel,
so little's known about this place, just inches from the keel.
But I can sing about these things and try to make you see,
the hardened life of men down there, cause one of them is me. I've seen these sweat soaked heroes fight, in superheated air,
to keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.
And so they'll fight for ages on, till warships sail no more,
amid the boilers mighty heat and turbines hellish roar.
So when you see a ship pull out, to meet a warlike foe,
remember faintly if you can
"the men who sail below"
Anonymous.
