Now each of us from time to time has gazed upon the sea;
and watched the war ships pulling out to keep this country free.
And most of us have read a book or heard a lusty tale;
about the men who sail these ships through lightning, wind, and hail.
But there is a place within each ship that legend fails to teach;
a place where men with fainter hearts would hardly dare to breach.
It is down below the waterline and takes a living toll;
a hot and metal living hell that sailors call the Hole.
It houses engines run by steam that make the shafts go round;
a place alight with noise and heat that beats your spirit down.
Where the reactor’s hellish heart and blood of angry steam;
push out their heat with no remorse like nightmares in a dream..
Where neutron paths will cause a threat like living life in doubt;
at any moment with such scorn might escape and Rad you out.
Where turbines scream like tortured souls alone and lost in hell;
and orders from above somewhere they answer every bell.
The men who make the atoms split and make the turbines roar;
are strangers to the light of day and all that they adore..
They have no time to question fate no tolerance for fear;
their aspects pay no living thing the tribute of a tear.
Where battle short is just a way to get you to the end;
where all who stand-up in your way are foe and not your friend.
And every hour of every day they keep the watch in hell;
for if the reactors ever fail the ships a useless shell..
When ships converge to have a war upon the angry sea;
the men below just grimly smile at what their fate might be.
They are locked below like men fore-doomed who hear no battle cry;
it is well assumed that if they are hit the men below will die.
For every day is a war down there when gauges all read red;
five hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead..
So if you ever write their song or try to tell their tail;
the very words should make you hear the turbines hellish wail.
And people as a general rule don not hear about their roll;
so little is heard about the place that sailors call the Hole.
But I can sing about this place and try to make you see;
the hardened life of men down there because one of them is me..
I have seen these sweat-soaked heroes fight in super heated air;
to keep their ships alive and right though no one knows they are there.
And thus they will fight for ages on till warships sail no more;
amid reactors mighty heat as screaming turbines roar.
So when you see the ships pull out to meet a warlike foe;
remember faintly if you can The Men Who Sail Below..
author unknown