| "My Sorry Life" |
| By M. Quint |
| As I walk along the pier alone I think of days gone by I think of family, life and loves and let out a pain filled sigh |
| Oh how my life would be had it gone a better way I'd be the captain of the biggest ship breathing salt air all day You see, I chose the life of a sailor just as my father and grandfather had I looked forward to a life on the sea I just wished it hadnt turned out so bad |
| I was born to the sea as far back as the days when I was cutting milk teeth my father a merchant marine seaman my mother a seamstress on High street I lost my mother before I went into breeches I was climbing the rigging before I could walk alone I spent two years at Roehampton with ill grace before they took mind to send me home I endured those blasted books but they helped to lay down the foundation and they had served thier purpose as I had hoped to learn me the art of navigation |
| My first vessel was a ketch called Sarah a shoop of twenty feet and three a rickety thing of oak and iron but she fared well out on the sea In the days of my fourteenth year war came upon our great land I wanted to fight, to defend her honour Only I wasnt quite yet the man On the first day of my seventeenth year I applied to the naval armed forces I made it aboard a great war ship and sailed her through many courses |
| On July 29th, 1945 on the Indianapolis ship a Japanese sub torpedoed her side my shipmates and me went into the water the rest went down with the ship and died But the most painful of all were the hungry sharks on attack eating through my shipmates toward me I played dead by floating on my back I floated in the ocean five days dead shipmates all around no food, no water, barely signs of life, only those horrid screaming sounds |
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