Payback!
We'd flown on up from Townsville
To patrol the northern gulf,
It was just a routine flight, and we
Felt lazy, after lunch,
With a pale blue sky above us
And an azure sea below,
I just felt like turning turtle,
Napping out, while things were slow.
I remember that the Beatles came
Across the intercom,
Sang a song from Sergeant Peppers
Of some Lonely Hearts Club Band,
I was down there in the nose cone
Strapped and buckled to my seat,
Feeling warm and safe and cozy
In the tropics, in the heat.
While down in Carpentaria
The water was sublime,
We'd flown this great expanse before
A hundred, thousand times
Looking out for those illegals,
Indonesian fishing boats,
Fishing in our charted waters,
Stealing fish from round our coast.
There were seven in the Neptune,
We were short on crew that day,
Just the Captain and co-pilot
And a Navigator, Ray,
The Rad-tech keeping cover
On the sonar, 'Jezebel',
The others taking turns on M.A.D.,
The stinger in the tail.
While I was the Observer, and
I should have been alert,
Keeping watch on the horizon,
There was nothing to report,
I could hear the others mumble
Through the sleepy afternoon,
Then a bell went off, the 'Snifter'
And it galvanized the crew.
The Captain ordered 'Sonar' and
We blasted off a buoy,
Flew on a dozen miles or so
Then dropped another toy,
The 'Jezebel' was chattering
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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