Ships of Long Ago

Passchendaele, meat on the menu every day, a limb, a torso, a tasty entrail, served fresh in the Trench Café. For wine they had a vintage red with a bouquet of acrid water, lifeblood of the newly dead, in this consummate place of slaughter. The brass-hats dined well at Command HQ in a fine house well back from the front, men of breeding accepting their due, recalling good times with the hunt. Cigars in hand, they passed the port, raised their glasses for the toasts to battles they had boldly fought from secure headquarters posts. The politicians dined well back in Blighty, talked of a war to end all wars, never doubting that God Almighty was committed to the allied cause. A minister, fortified with scotch, at a recruitment rally in Poole, insisted that Haig was top notch, not, as some thought, a stubborn fool. The troops did not dine well at Passchendaele from a menu written in blood. Each day they were served the same cocktail of bullets, privation and mud. But no complaints from the Trench Café as the diners gathered en made to savour once more the human entrée, seasoned with cordite and gas.

On the southeastern coast of Java, a few kilometers inland from “a large bay enclosed by the rocky outcrops of rugged cliffs,” a contemporary traveler may find a strangely misplaced Classical Greek temple, inscribed with the words “Gegaan maar niet vergeten,” or in English, “Gone but not forgotten.”

And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach, and face the worst that the tyrant’s might and enmity can do. Bearing ourselves humbly before God, but conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose, we are ready to defend our native land against the invasion by which it is threatened. We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone. Here in this strong City of Refuge which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian civilization; here, girt about by the seas and oceans where the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess and devotion of our airmen-we await undismayed the impending assault. Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps it will never come. We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock or-what is perhaps a harder test-a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy-we shall ask for none.

Monster cloud rising over Hiroshima, over the world—monstrous, mushrooming thing, sign of our age, symbol of our sin: growth; bigness, speed: grow, grow, grow—grow in a cancer, enlarge a factory, swell a city, balloon our bellies, speed life, fly to the moon, burst a bomb, shatter a people—explode the world. So it rose and I shrank in my cot, I who had cringed before the body-squeezing blast of a five-hundred-pound bomb, hearing now this strange cold incomprehensible jargon of the megaton. Someone had sinned against life, and I felt it in my very person. But then I, too, sinned. Suddenly, secretly, covertly—I rejoiced. For as I lay in that hospital, I had faced the bleak prospect of returning to the Pacific and the war and the law of averages. But now, I knew, the Japanese would have to lay down their arms. The war was over. I had survived. Like a man wielding a submachine gun to defend himself against an unarmed boy, I had survived. So I rejoiced.

Later in the day a ranking British officer boarded the ship and demanded to know ‘who these men are’. When told they were 488 Squadron NZ from Kallang in Singapore he said in a very nasty manner that they had no right to be there and should have remained at their posts in Singapore to be prisoners of the Japanese. This statement by the officer just summed up the attitude of the hierarchy towards the ‘colonials’ that had existed in the services since the First World War.

The men of the entire Asiatic command were splendid. They must have realized fairly early on what the outcome of the campaign would be. But, like their officers, they never faltered and kept their fighting edge to the end.

If survival calls for the bearing of arms, bear them you must. But the most important part of the challenge is for you to find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow man.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Our chummy ship [HMS Ardent] has sunk, the Glorious is sinking, the least we can do is make a show, good luck to you all.

Never before in legal history has an effort been made to bring within the scope of a single litigation the developments of a decade, covering a whole continent, and involving a score of nations, countless individuals, and innumerable events. Despite the magnitude of the task, the world has demanded immediate action.This demand has had to be met, though perhaps at the cost of finished craftsmanship. To my country, established courts, following familiar procedures, applying well-thumbed precedents, and dealing with the legal consequences of local and limited events seldom commence a trial within a year of the event in litigation. Yet less than 8 months ago today the courtroom in which you sit was an enemy fortress in the hands of German SS troops. Less than 8 months ago nearly all our witnesses and documents were in enemy hands. The law had not been codified, no procedures had been established, no tribunal was in existence, no usable courthouse stood here, none of the hundreds of tons of official German documents had been examined, no prosecuting staff had been assembled, nearly all of the present defendants were at large, and the four prosecuting powers had not yet joined in common cause to try them. I should be the last to deny that the case may well suffer from incomplete researches and quite likely will not be the example of professional work which any of the prosecuting nations would normally wish to sponsor. It is, however, a completely adequate case to the judgment we shall ask you to render. The full development we shall be obliged to leave to historians.

Passchendaele, meat on the menu every day, a limb, a torso, a tasty entrail, served fresh in the Trench Café. For wine they had a vintage red with a bouquet of acrid water, lifeblood of the newly dead, in this consummate place of slaughter. The brass-hats dined well at Command HQ in a fine house well back from the front, men of breeding accepting their due, recalling good times with the hunt. Cigars in hand, they passed the port, raised their glasses for the toasts to battles they had boldly fought from secure headquarters posts. The politicians dined well back in Blighty, talked of a war to end all wars, never doubting that God Almighty was committed to the allied cause. A minister, fortified with scotch, at a recruitment rally in Poole, insisted that Haig was top notch, not, as some thought, a stubborn fool. The troops did not dine well at Passchendaele from a menu written in blood. Each day they were served the same cocktail of bullets, privation and mud. But no complaints from the Trench Café as the diners gathered en made to savour once more the human entrée, seasoned with cordite and gas.

SHE wasn’t much to brag about, she wasn’t much to see, A rusty, crusty hooker as a merchant ship could be; They sunk her off the Longships light as night was coming on, And we had to go and leave her there and, poor old ship, she’s gone. All that was good of her, all that was bad of her, All that we gave to her, all that we had of her, Poor old ship, she’s gone! The times we spent aboard her, they was oftener bad than good, But bad or good, we’d live the lot all over if we could; She’s stood her trick as well as us, she’s had her whack of fun, She’s shared it all with sailormen, and poor old ship, she’s done. Hard times and soft times and all times we’ve been with her, Bad days and good days and all sorts we’ve seen with her, And, poor old ship, she’s done! She’s stuck her crazy derricks up by half a hundred quays, She’s dipped her dingy duster in the spray of all the seas; Her funnels caked with Cape Horn ice and blistered in the sun, She’s moseyed round above a bit, and, poor old ship, she’s done. North seas and south, and they’ve all had a go at her, Hot winds and cold, and they’ve all had a blow at her, And, poor old ship, she’s done! She’s trailed her smudge the whole world round in weather gray and blue, She’s churned a dozen oceans with her bloomin’ nine-knot screw; She’s sampled all the harbor mud from Cardiff to Canton, And she’ll never clear another port, for, poor old ship, she’s gone. Ports up and down, and she’s seen many a score of ’em; Seas high and low, and she won’t sail no more of ’em, For, poor old ship, she’s gone! And chaps that knowed her in her time, ’tween London and Rangoon, In many a sailor’s drinking-place and water-front saloon, Will set their drinks down when they hear her bloomin’ yarn is spun, And say, “I sailed aboard her once, and, poor old ship, she’s done. Many’s the hard word I once used to spend on her, Ah, them was the great days, and now there’s an end on her, Poor old ship, she’s done!”

I HAVE a conversation book; I brought it out from home. It tells you the French for knife and fork and likewise brush and comb; It learns you how to ask the time, the names of all the stars, And how to order oysters and how to buy cigars. But there ain’t no stores to buy in; there ain’t no big hotels, When you spend your time in dugouts doing a wholesale trade in shells; It’s nice to know the proper talk for theatres and such, But when it comes to talking, why, it doesn’t help you much. There’s all them friendly kind o’ things you’d naturally say When you meet a feller casual like and pass the time o’ day. Them little things that breaks the ice and kind of clears the air. But when you use your French book, why, them things isn’t there. I met a chap the other day a-rootin’ in a trench. He didn’t know a word of ours, nor me a word of French; And how we ever managed, well, I cannot understand, But I never used my French book though I had it in my hand. I winked at him to start with; he grinned from ear to ear; An’ he says, “Bong jour, Sammy,” an’ I says “Souvenir”; He took my only cigarette, I took his thin cigar, Which set the ball a-rollin’, and so—well, there you are! I showed him next my wife and kids; he up and showed me his, Them funny little French kids with hair all in a frizz; “Annette,” he says, “Louise,” he says, and his tears begin to fall; We was comrades when we parted, though we’d hardly spoke at all. He’d have kissed me if I’d let him. We had never met before, And I’ve never seen the beggar since, for that’s the way of war; And though we scarcely spoke a word, I wonder just the same If he’ll ever see them kids of his—I never asked his name.

THE star upon their service flag has changed to gleaming gold; It speaks no more of hope and life, as once it did of old, But splendidly it glistens now for every eye to see And softly whispers: “Here lived one who died for liberty. “Here once he walked and played and laughed, here oft his smile was known; Within these walls today are kept the toys he used to own. Now I am he who marched away and I am he who fell; Of service once I spoke, but now of sacrifice I tell.{18} “No richer home in all this land is there than this I grace, For here was cradled manhood fine; within this humble place A soldier for the truth was born, and here, beside the door, A mother sits and grieves for him who shall return no more. “Salute me, stranger, as you pass! I mark a soldier who Gave up the joys of living here, to dare and die for you! This is the home that once he knew, who fought for you and fell; This is a shrine of sacrifice, where faith and courage dwell.”

“PARDON! he has no Engleesh, heem, Il ne parle que Française, I spik it leetle some Monsieur, Vaire bad, j’en suis fâché— Marines? Mais oui! I fight wiz zem At Château Thierry An’ on ze Ourcq an’ Marne in grand Bon camaraderie. I see zem fight at bois Belleau, Like sauvage make ze yell,— Sacre nom de Dieu! zoze sailor man Eez fightin’ like ze hell! All time zey smile when make ze push, Magnifique zaire élan, Zey show ze heart of lion For delight our brav Franchman. An’ in ze tranch at rest, zoze troop From ze Etats Unis Queeck make ze good frien’ of poilu Wiz beeg slap on ze knee! Zey make ze song an’ joke, si drôle An’ pass ze cigarette; Zey call us goddam good ol’ scout Like Marquis La Fayette. Next day, mebbee, again ze taps— Ze volley in ze air.— Adieu! some fightin’ sailor man Eez gone West. C’est la guerre! No more ze smile, ze hug, ze hand Queeck wiz ze cigarette C’est vrai, at funerall of heem Ze poilu’s eye eez wet. But, every day like tidal wave,— Like human avalanche,— Ze transport bring more Yankee troop, To get ze beeg revanche! Zen from ze heart Américaine Come milliards of monnaie; Eet eez ze end! Your country bring Triomphant liberté. So, au revoir! I mus’ go on But first I tell to you What some high Officier remark Zat day at bois Belleau. He says, our great Napoleon Wiz envy would turn green Eef he could see zoze sailor man,— Zoze Uncle Sam Marines!”

BY blazing homes, through forests torn And blackened harvest fields, The grim and drunken god of war In frenzied fury reels. His breath—the sulph’rous stench of guns— That death and famine deals And Pity, pleading, wounded falls Beneath his steel-shod heels.

“Left!  Left!” Had a good girl when I “Left!  Left!” Mighty good pal when I “Left!” “One! Two! Three! Four!” How many miles more? “Left! “Left!  Left!” Booked for a wife when I “Left!  Left!” That was my life when I “Left!” “One! Two! Three! Four!” Hear old Lieutenant roar  "Left!“