Such a one was Johnny Carr
(Sub-Lieutenant R.N.R.).
I have never caught him yet
Out of sorts when it was wet;
He will hum when tempests howl,
Whistle midst the thunder's growl,
And I've seen him sing for joy,
Clinging to a punctured buoy,
While his gallant T.B.D.
Sank beside him in the sea.
No one knows exactly when or
Why he came to call it tenor,
But the fact remains he sang
With a subtle nasal twang
Just because he liked to do so
(He was Carr, but not CARUSO),
And with such a force of lung
That, whatever tune he sung,
It was like a projectile
With a range of twenty mile.
'Twas the thirty-first of May.
On that memorable day,
Flitting like a restless ghost
Somewhere off the Danish coast,
His destroyer, all agog,
Butted through the clinging fog,
When for just a space the gray
Mists of morning rolled away.
Ah! but how their pulses beat
When they saw the High Seas Fleet
Nosing noiseless as a dream
Barely half-a-mile abeam;
Then the filmy mists anew
Blotted everything from view.
John, astounded at the sight,
Sang aloud with all his might.
But the German, seeing nought,
Only hearing what he thought
Must be twelve-inch guns at least
Firing at him from the East,
Felt that it was time to hook it,
Saw his chance and boldly took it.
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