Every time I read this poem I choke up.

MESSAGE FROM SUBMARINE OVERDUE

by Win Brooks

We surface near dawn when the moon was thin

To charge the batteries, low as sin.

The sea was feathered; the breeze, which hung

Easterly, tickled along the tongue

Like dry champagne.  (Though I gravely fear

Sub crews are better acquainted with beer.)

The skip stood with the O.O.D.

The deck watch added lookouts three,

And sparks who is numbered among the drones,

Manned his phones.

The diesels gave us a steerage way

With light sea following.  So we lay

Bow for Formosa, stern to Wake,

Along the course that the Nip must make.

The night was going.  The Nip was coming,

There in the darkness faintly humming.

Varsity soundmen dialed his course,

When suddenly up to the tight bridge deck

Climbed the Exec.

“Sir”, he said in a voice indignant,

“Here is a message most malignant.

Pearl just coded an ALNAV through

That a submarine is overdue

And is, in the run of hard coin tossed,

Head or tails, presumed to be lost.”

He swore with admirably little fuss,

“The fools mean us!”

(We remember the depth charge blow,

But that was a long, long time ago.)

The skipper snorted a laugh of scorn.

“What in the sea green hell goes on?

We’re a year from port with our oil tanks brimmed,

An enemy convoy all but limned,

Water condition A, tubes loaded---

Listed for obsequies outmoded!”

He scanned the night with a hungry frown.

“Take her down!”

The lights flashed green on the Christmas Tree,

We took her down to periscope---see.

Verbs and adjectives most inept,

We plotted course that would intercept.

Sea on scope made a hollow drumming

Heading her in.  The dawn was coming.

The Jap was coming.  The skipper’s gaze

Fixed on the lead ships through the haze.

“Two is the target.  Let one pass.

Heavy cruiser.  Kako class.

Range three thousand, scale one hundred,

Bearing zero, zero three.  I’ve one dread

Firing at dawn---that the fish we swim

Reflect on the red sun’s rising rim,

And not the rim of the Rising Sun. . . .Fire One!”

We lurched as she left, remotely hissing.

(God guard our submarines from missing.)

We heeled and steadied; and at the eye

The skip said, “Cargo.  Pass her by. . . .

Troopship.  Taigei class maru. . . .Fire Two!”

We waited taut while the stop watch ran,

We waited cold while the sweat began,

Till dull on the hull boomed distant thunder,

Crashing the new born day asunder.

“What do you make of One in the view, Sir?”

“Scratch the cruiser!”

Once repeated, we felt her shudder,

Shake like a dog from bow to rudder.

“What do you score for Two in the smother?”

“Scratch the other!”

Now take her down. . . .

                             Take her down. . . .

                                                                   Take her easily,

Slide her down. . . glide her

                                                        down silently, greasily,

Down where the bottom is,

Oh, fair the bottom is!

Our lair the bottom is,

Safe from attack.

Now lay her gently and gently to sleep,

One

   mile

       deep!

(How can it ever be said we are lost

Who are always together?

Rime on our tomb from the deep’s firefrost,

Always together, in battle and weather.

In death?  Lost?  Lost but breath.

We are gay, we are young, we are one, and one only.

One with the deathless and one with the living,

One in close comradship, now never lonely,

But never forgiving

The silly assumption so carelessly tossed,

The stupid presumption:  “Presumed to be lost.”)

With radio silence C imposed,

How can we tell you we only dozed

There in the sand, in the mud, in the dark,

All hands secure, with an unquenched spark

Glowing to light the buoyant spirit

And blow the tanks?  Do you still not hear it?

How can we tell you there on land

What only the sub crews understand?

How can we say what the spirit means?

There is no death for submarines.

And nights when the moon hangs thin and low

From Truck to Guam to Hokkaido,

Submarines lying secure and deep

Presumed to be lost but only asleep,

Shudder and tremble and upward glide

A mile and more in the surging tide;

Shadows moving with never a wake

Along the course that the Nip must make---

Men of the vast, unsounded waters

At general quarters.