Rum Ration
the Navy Network

Well, if we are going slightly off thread....

'O Lord above
Send down a dove
Wiv wings as sharp as razors
To cut the throats
Of them there blokes
Wot sells bad beer to sailors'

Seen in a book somewhere many moons ago.

(gavin sutherland, 1972)

I am sailing, I am sailing,
Home again cross the sea.
I am sailing, stormy waters,
To be near you, to be free.

I am flying, I am flying,
Like a bird cross the sky.
I am flying, passing high clouds,
To be with you, to be free.

Can you hear me, can you hear me
Thro the dark night, far away,
I am dying, forever trying,
To be with you, who can say.

Can you hear me, can you hear me,
Thro the dark night far away.
I am dying, forever trying,
To be with you, who can say.

We are sailing, we are sailing,
Home again cross the sea.
We are sailing stormy waters,
To be near you, to be free.

Oh lord, to be near you, to be free.
Oh lord, to be near you, to be free,
Oh lord.

1805

At Viscount Nelson's lavish funeral,
While the mob milled and yelled about St Paul's,
A General chatted with an Admiral:

'One of your Colleagues, Sir, remarked today
That Nelson's exit, though to be lamented,
Falls not inopportunely, in its way.'

'He was a thorn in our flesh,' came the reply---
'The most bird-witted, unaccountable,
Odd little runt that ever I did spy.

'One arm, one peeper, vain as Pretty Poll,
A meddler, too, in foreign politics
And gave his heart in pawn to a plain moll.

'He would dare lecture us Sea Lords, and then
Would treat his ratings as though men of honour
And play at leap-frog with his midshipmen!

'We tried to box him down, but up he popped,
And when he'd banged Napoleon at the Nile
Became too much the hero to be dropped.

'You've heard that Copenhagen "blind eye" story?
We'd tied him to Nurse Parker's apron-strings---
By G---d, he snipped them through and snatched the glory!'

'Yet,' cried the General, 'six-and-twenty sail
Captured or sunk by him off Tráfalgár---
That writes a handsome finis to the tale.'

'Handsome enough. The seas are England's now.
That fellow's foibles need no longer plague us.
He died most creditably, I'll allow.'

'And, Sir, the secret of his victories?'
'By his unServicelike, familiar ways, Sir,
He made the whole Fleet love him, damn his eyes!'

Robert Graves

Levers

The Quarter-Gunner’s Yarn
Henry Newbolt

We lay at St. Helen’s, and easy she rode
With one anchor catted and fresh-water stowed;
When the barge came alongside like bullocks we roared,
For we knew what we carried with Nelson aboard.

Our Captain was Hardy, the pride of us all,
I’ll ask for none better when danger shall call;
He was hardy by nature and Hardy by name,
And soon by his conduct to honour he came.

The third day the Lizard was under our lee,
Where the Ajax and Thunderer joined us at sea,
But what with foul weather and tacking about,
When we sighted the Fleet we were thirteen days out.

The Captains they all came aboard quick enough,
But the news that they brought was as heavy as duff;
So backward an enemy never was seen,
They were harder to come at than Cheeks the Marine.

The lubbers had hare’s lugs where seamen have ears,
So we stowed all saluting and smothered our cheers,
And to humour their stomachs and tempt them to dine,
In the offing we showed them but six of the line.

One morning the topmen reported below
The old Agamemnon escaped from the foe.
Says Nelson: “My lads, there’ll be honour for some,
For we’re sure of a battle now Berry has come.�

“Up hammocks!� at last cried the bo’sun at dawn;
The guns were cast loose and the tompions drawn;
The gunner was bustling the shot racks to fill,
And “All hands to quarters!� was piped with a will.

We now saw the enemy bearing ahead,
And to East of them Cape Traflagar it was said,
’Tis a name we remember from father to son,
That the days of old England may never be done.

The Victory led, to her flag it was due,
Tho’ the Temeraires thought themselves Admirals too;
But Lord Nelson he hailed them with masterful grace:
“Cap’n Harvey, I’ll thank you to keep in your place.�

To begin with we closed the Bucentaure alone,
An eighty-gun ship and their Admiral’s own;
We raked her but once, and the rest of the day
Like a hospital hulk on the water she lay.

To our battering next the Redoutable struck,
But her sharpshooters gave us the worst of the luck:
Lord Nelson was wounded, most cruel to tell.
“They’ve done for me; Hardy!� he cried as he fell.

To the cockpit in silence they carried him past,
And sad were the looks that were after him cast;
His face with a kerchief he tried to conceal,
But we knew him too well from the truck to the keel.

When the Captain reported a victory won,
“Thank God!� he kept saying, “my duty I’ve done.�
At last came the moment to kiss him good-bye,
And the Captain for once had the salt in his eye.

“Now anchor, dear Hardy,� the Admiral cried;
But before we could make it he fainted and died.
All night in the trough of the sea we were tossed,
And for want of ground-tackle good prizes were lost.

Then we hauled down the flag, at the fore it was red,
And blue at the mizzen was hoisted instead
By Nelson’s famed Captain, the pride of each tar,
Who fought in the Victory off Cape Traflagar.

Thomas Higgins, a Corporal in the 1/5 North Staffordshire Regiment in the Great War,

God and Soldiers men adore
In times of war,but not before
When War is over and things are righted
God is forgotton and Soldiers are slighted

Quite pertinent in this day and age i think

Once I looked from Tamar Bridge at the warships down below
Ships of the modern navy with names I did not know
And, as I stood and gazed at them on the water far below
I saw a fleet of phantom ships and men of long ago

The Rodney and the Nelson, the Valiant and Ramilies
Repulse, Renown and Malaya, coming home from foreign seas
I saw Revenge and Warspite, ill-fated Royal Oak
So many ships, their names made faint by shell and fire and smoke

And some I see to harbour come as thro glasses dark
The Barham and the Glorious, the Eagle and the Ark
And then, there comes the greatest, the mighty warship Hood
Dark and grey and wraithlike, from the spot on which I stood

From the cruel North Atlantic, from the Med and Java sea
The big ships and the little ships returned for me to see
There’s the Dorsetshire, Edinburgh, Cambeltown and Kent
The Cossack and Courageous, the Charybdis and Ardent

Now I can’t see very clearly, must be smoke that’s in my eyes
But mercifully hidden are the men and stifled are their cries
You don’t know Shorty Hasset, he won the DSM
He fought on when Exeter was burning stern to stem

Where now…! Dodger Long and Lofty, where now the boys and men?
They are lost and gone forever- shall we see their likes again
I thought I saw them mustering on deck for daily prayer
And heard “For those in Peril� rise on the evening air

Then darker grew the picture as he lowering night came on
I looked down from that lofty bridge, but all the ships were gone
Those mighty ships had vanished, gone those simple men
We’ll surely never ever, see the likes of them again

Author unknown

John Pudney, 'Missing':

Less said the better,
The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
No roses at the end
For Smith, my friend.

Last words don't matter,
And there are none to flatter.
Words will not fill the post
Of Smith, the ghost.

For Smith, our brother,
Only son of loving mother,
The ocean lifted, stirred,
Leaving no word.

Originally Posted by Harry_off_the_Hermes

A bubble watchkeeper's lament

I wandered lonely as a cloud,
in front of A2 boiler
the water level went over the top
so I opened the rapid shut off

Was it an Aussie a Kiwi or Kipper--
That damned elusive Phantom Flipper?