William Richard Torvaney - The Corporal's Tale

Now this is a tale of the Lewis Gun
A tale that was told to me
By a Corporal tight on a wet, wet night
By the side of the grey North Sea
When the wind blew high in a sullen sky
Across an angry bay
‘mid clink of glass or laugh of a lass
We whiled the hours away

And the Corporal told how he dreamt a dream
Of a gun that had all gone wrong
Whose parts were stuck in pools of muck
Whose casing was used as a gong
An’ between each creak the parts would speak
To their wrathful Number One
“We don’t care a damn if the cartridges jam
In the rotten old Lewis Gun”

Then the feed-arm pawl would pay a call
On the key of the magazine post
An’ the locking lugs would hunt for bugs
In the holes where oil lies most
Then the axis pins would kick the shins
Of the actuating stud
An’ the piston rod felt rather odd
In a cylinder full of mud

Then the tangent sight would want to fight
When the circular magazine
And the teeth of the rack would slip right back
Where the sear spring should have been
The ejector broke in a final stroke
And the butt-stock split with glee
And the spare-parts bag was smoking a fag
With the regulator key

Now that was the tale of the Lewis Gun
The tale that was told to me
By the Corporal tight that wet, wet night
By the side of the grey North Sea
An’ I think in sooth that he told the truth
An’ he thought that his tale was true
So the tale that was told by the Corporal bold
Is the tale that I’ve told to you.”

William Richard Torvaney

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