To Ralph

Munich time, and you eighteen
I a year less.
“I just want to fly”
You said,
“Not die”
And we were quiet
In anxious contemplation..

For a year
You flew in peace
Each weekend.
Then Danzig came.
We changed our office suits
For blue
Of different hues.

Two years, nine months
Have passed since then -
Norway, Poland, Rhine -
Scharnhorst [our mutual friend]
Tirpitz, Brest,
You knew them all
[Once a trawler picked you up
As you swam].
And still you flew.

D.F.M.
[God ! How you deserved it !]
A thin blue ring
Replaced the stripes.
You volunteered
To go abroad -
We joked about the snow
On Russian boots,
And bears.
Then one day, Malta !
You wrote
“The country’s grand
And bathing fine”
{The BBC filled in the gaps}
Soon, M.E.F.
“There’s too much sand”
I read.
“But the bathing’s grand”
{Tobruk was falling}
Still the battle rages
And you are there.
Oh, Ralph ! God bless.

{Flight Lieut.R.E.Walker, D.F,M.was a photo-reconnaissance Spitfire pilot and
was killed over Italy in July 1943 ].

Evening in Dumbarton Road

Drab capped, drab suited, booted men
Surge on to crowded trams,
The Citizen or Evening Times
Thrust under weary arms.
With hands in pockets, three or four abreast,
Some amble quick
To dreary tenements hard by.
Less hasty, Jock and Dick
Join in the queue for cigarettes,
Disinterested, mute…
And still they come, flood through the gates
To take their chosen route
With clinking hobs and tips
To supplement the sound
Of traffic moving slowly through
The mob now homeward bound.
Their thoughts ? Who knows ? Tea, perhaps
Then whisky [what a price !]
A little later with the boys.
Or, will the Rangers twice
Defeat the Papes this season ? Dogs ?
Or shall we dance at Green’s ?
That ruddy foreman. Jean’s new frock…
The shipyard walls entreat
A Second Front, or [odd!]
Ask youth to join the A.T.C….
And on the workers plod.

These are the men who wield the tools
Ensuring that Britannia Rules.


(written in HMS Mistral, in John Brown’s shipyard, 14th June 1942}

H.M.S.Worcester

Two anxious hours to contemplate bleak death
At thirty knots consuming cold grey seas.
Action Stations, duffel coats, tin hats -
Below, a throbbing engine room reprise.

Junkers aircraft bombing from the clouds
Brought urgency, then "Enemy in Sight! "
The forward four point sevens bellowed out
Their challenge to the battlecruisers' might.
Tall shell-spouts cased her as she turned to fire
Torpedoes. As they leapt, cacophony
Erupted, brute bombardment wrenched apart
The bridge, chewed steel in vicious gluttony.

Five minutes’ devastation. Sudden peace,
Uncanny, as she wallowed without power.
Miraculously the lower hull survived
But Gibson, Dow and Grant, and twenty more
Lay dead. Doc Jackson's needle eased the pain
Of others. Pom-poms warned the RAF away.
Bizarrely, Junkers' recognition flares
Confirmed the wild confusion of that day.

So, vulnerable, rolling helplessly
She lay for seeming hours. Then nervous ears
Rejoiced at turning screws. By fits and starts
She staggered home, a frozen fifteen hours.







[Published “Memories of War “[Sahara Publications] 2007

Mined

She had no chance, a blow which shook
Our hull and made the watch below
Run up on deck, to see a surge
Of water first engulf, then lay her low,
Whilst all around were men and wood.

We manned our boat. No gala, this,
Of picking up survivors, cold
And hurt, we half afraid to miss
A head among the bobbing casks.

Nine men we saved of twenty two
Who but an hour before had left
The quay. They left a promise to
Return next day, a promise that
For thirteen will be unfulfilled,
And thirteen families will mourn
A son, a brother, father killed
At sea. Such things we don’t forget.

And some day, sipping tea, you’ll read
“The Board of Admiralty regret …..”

1943