There was no sound in our boat
Save the clingle of wrist chains
And the sobbing of the young Greek.
I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea...
I cursed him that his oar kept ill time...
When he looked at me I cursed him again,
That his eyes were soft as a woman's.
How long... since their last shell gouged our batteries?
How long... since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern?
(It was the damned green moon that nosed us out...
The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame...)
They loosed each man's right hand
As the galley spent on our decks...
And amazed and bloodied we reared half up
And fought askew with the left hand shackled...
But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets
And knotted our thews like string...
Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten...
How long... since our gauges fell
And the sea shoved us under?
It is dark... so dark...
Darkness presses hairy-hot
Where three make crowded company...
And the rank steel smells....
It is still... so still...
I seem to hear the wind
On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above...
It was still... so still... we three that were left alive
Stared in each other's faces...
But three make bitter company at one man's bread...
And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon's edge in the water.
One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth.
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