|
Now each of us from time to time, has gazed upon the sea
And watched the warships pulling out, to keep this country free. And most of us
have read the book, or heard the lusty tale About the men who sail these ships,
through lightning, wind and hail. But there's a place within each ship, that
stories never reach. And there's a special breed
of men, that legends really teach. It's down below the waterline, it takes a
living roll... A hot metallic 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 beat your spirit down. Where boilers, like a hellish heart, with
blood of angry steam Are armored gods without remorse; are nightmares in a
dream. Whose threat that from
the fires roar, is like a living doubt That any minute would scorn, escape and
crush you out. Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell
As ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell. The men who keep the
fires lit, and make the engines run Are strangers to the world of light, rarely
see the sun. They have no time
for man or god, 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 Beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engines run. And every
hour of every day, they keep the watch in hell, For if the fires ever fail,
their ship's a useless shell. When ships converge to have a war, upon an angry
sea, The men below just grimly
smile at what their fate might be. They're locked below like men foredoomed, who
hear no battle cry. It's well assumed that if they're hit, the men below will
die. There's not much difference down below, that ever war may bring, For threat
of ugly violent death, down there's a common thing For every day's a war down
there, when the gauges all read red. Twelve-hundred pounds of heated steam can
kill you mighty
dead. So every man down in the hole has learned to hate so well, That when you
speak to them of fear, their laughter's heard in hell. The men below are fools
who watch their spirits slowly die; Who often can't remember how a cloud looks
in the sky. So if you ever wrote their song, or tried to tell their tale The
very words would make you hear a desperate spirit's wail. And people, as a
general rule, don't hear a dying soul. So little is heard about the place that
Sailor's call the "Hole". But I can sing about this place and try to make you
see The hopeless life of men down there, "cause one of them is me". And I've
been down there for so long now, that part of me has died. The part that lives
on without a fight, to be a lost hope's guide. I've seen these
sweat-soaked hero's fight, in superheated air To keep their ship alive and
right, though no one knows they're there So when you see a ship pull out to meet
a war-like foe, Remember faintly, if you can, the men who sail below! |