BALLAD Poem: We Had Braved the North Atlantic Run, by Patrick Bruskiewich

Death came swift at sea
We lost our ship did we
The Focke-Wulf bombed us
Enemy Action … sunk us

It circled our ship at dusk
With only a machine gun
Our defense … the bastard Hun
Shattered my bridge with cannon fire

My first mate died at my side
… then its calculated run
It flung at us, a hungry cat at mouse
I rung up speed … turned my ship …

THIS IS IT BOYS!

From a distance we saw it come, fast
and furious, the drop … the deed was done
We had braved the North Atlantic Run
We the brave had lost.

Five hundred pounds the bomb it was
Plunged at us and hit
A horrid flash, the noise
The smoke … it exploded amidships.

This our purgatory on earth
The devil is our friend, the hissing
of a thousand vipers, the escape of steam
Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship!

My stockers climbed the steep stairs
Up from the engine room ablaze
Leaving the dead behind in hell. Scalded
soaked in oil, into the icy sea they plunged

One last message to the world
before spark’s electricity fades
“CQ… CQ …. Come Quick!”
We sink … all is lost …”

Then the lowering of the boats, we race to
scramble down off our ship. One last time
We leave our lives behind
From now its borrowed time.

Then the final show, the ship we loved
The naked keel, modesty gone
Our ship … proud Cynthia slipped
into the sea … her bow dived steep.

The evil plane done flew away
to kill another day … the Hun had Won!
We had braved the North Atlantic Run
We the brave had lost.

Then silence, the sea wrapped around us.
… it hide us from the sun.
Our long ordeal had now begun
We drifted countless days on days.

The hours passed, the long nights,
The cold, the anguish, the dieing
All brave men … the stench of oil,
Burnt flesh and gore … the cry mother I am to die.

The fact that I am here
to tell my solemn story
meant you had come in time
and saved me from me glory

The Hun hangs around my neck
like some dead albatross.
Let me sail another day,
give me another ship

Once again I’ll brave the North Atlantic Run
Give me the tools and I shall finish the job
No bastard Hun will kill me off
If not for myself … then old England