The Submarine Poem by David Lewis Paget

It floated ashore one pitch black night
We hadn't seen it before,
All covered in barnacles and scale
Cast up from a distant war,
It gently rolled as the tide came in
And hit the rocks with a ‘clang',
Then settled down as its scuppers cleared
The decks, all covered in sand.

The conning tower was an evil sight
Its paint was peeling away,
Ribbons of black, as camouflage
Peeled off in the light of day,
And there we could see the Swastika
Look down with an evil leer,
As once it looked on its victims when
It ruled in a sea of fear.

The storm that had brought it to the shore
Took far too long to abate,
It raged and roared for a week before
We'd take the risk on its plate,
But then we found that the rust had hid
All access into its gloom,
We walked the whole of its length but found
No way to enter the tomb.

There must have been twenty men inside
Or what was left of their bones,
But all I'd hear when the night was clear
Was a chorus of shrieks and moans.
We smashed the hatch in the conning tower
And a sailor ventured in,
We hauled him out in a quarter hour
But his mind was wandering.

I saw some movement deep in the hull
And I called out, ‘Who goes there? '
But then a guttural German voice
Had answered, in despair,
‘Stay well away from the conning tower
It's a type of evil well,
Once within you are caught in sin
And you'll find yourself in Hell.'

The sea rose up and covered the rocks
And it floated off the sub,
While all the bones in their shrieks and moans
Screamed ‘Mercy' - there's the rub,
They called for mercy they never gave
When they sank each helpless crew,
Now roam forever beneath the waves
In a sub, now sunken too.

28 July 2016