"The Engineer's Lament"

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 rearly 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, excape 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's 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 heros 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!

This CPO Ring Site is owned by Crazy Dave EMC(SW) USN
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