第14章

ABOVE, the baffled twilight fails; beneath, the blind snakes creep;

Beside us glides the charnel shark, our pilot through the deep;

And, lurking where low headlands shield from cruising scout and spy, We bide the signal through the gloom that bids us slay or die.

All watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard the strait sea lanes--Watchful and hawklike, plumed with hate, the desperate aeroplanes--And still as death and swift as fate, above the darkling coasts, The spying Wireless sows the night with troops of stealthy ghosts, While hushed through all her huddled streets the tide-walled city waits The drumming thunders that announce brute battle at her gates.

Southward a hundred windy leagues, through storms that blind and bar, Our cheated cruisers search the waves, our cap-tains seek the war;

But here the port of peril is; the foeman's dread-noughts ride Sullen and black against the moon, upon a sullen tide.

And only we to launch ourselves against their stark advance--To guide uncertain lightnings through these treach-erous seas of chance!

. . . . . .

And now a wheeling searchlight paints a signal on the night;

And now the bellowing guns are loud with the wild lust of fight.

. . . . . .

And now, her flanks of steel apulse with all the power of hell, Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful miracle, The flagship of their Admiral--and now God help and save!--We challenge Death at Death's own game; we sink beneath the wave!

. . . . . .

Ah, steady now--and one good blow--one straight stab through the gloom--Ah, good!--the thrust went home!--she founders--flounders to her doom!--Full speed ahead!--those damned quick-firing guns --but let them bark--What's that--the dynamos?--they've got us, men!

--Christ! in the dark!