大象传媒

On Christmas Day 1941 I was one of several thousand servicemen on the troop ship "Duchess of Bedford", which had left Liverpool on November 13th bound for the Far East. To while away some time I wrote this poem, based on the Victorian ballad " 'Twas Christmas Day in the Workhouse", to reflect the experiences of myself and the other men on board. (Incidentally, the ship was diverted to North Africa at the last minute, so we never saw the Far East.)

Christmas on The Duchess

鈥楾was Christmas day on the Duchess,
The morning was sunny and bright,
And the convoy was sailing on gaily;
Some would call it a beautiful sight.

But we鈥檙e only three days out of Durban
After being six weeks on the boat,
And we鈥檙e browned off with sun, sky and water,
Didn鈥檛 relish a Christmas afloat.

We all trooped down early to breakfast.
The food on the voyage had been bad,
But this was a festive occasion;
We thought p鈥檙haps a change would be made.

We got on the queue at eight-thirty,
And waited till quarter past nine.
When at last we got into the mess room
Our bellies were rumbling real fine.

The food was no better than usual,
Though the egg, we agreed, was quite good.
The bacon was all fat, and greasy,
And the bread--sawdust, straight from the wood!

The tea was as watery as ever;
It had been just the same all the trip.
It struggled to climb up the teapot,
And staggered out over the lip.

With a sigh we returned to our billet,
To polish our mess tins with Vim,
And got ten cigarettes as a present,
From Pikey and Lenton and Pin*

The time that was left before dinner
We spent lounging about on the decks,
Playing solo, Monopoly and reading
Till we鈥檇 pains in our bums and our necks.

At one we went down to the mess room,
And waited again, until two.
Then they gave us our turkey and stuffing
With potatoes, and cabbages too.

For afters we had Christmas pudding,
With an orange, an apple and beer,
And one cigarette made by Players.
We soon made the lot disappear.

They told us the banquet was over,
We were wished all the best by the Chief;
But we felt just as hungry as ever,
And longed for some Yorkshire and beef.

Once more we returned to our billets,
Cleaned our mess tins, and made for the decks,
And carried on same as the morning,
Or sunbathed and smoked cigarettes

And we thought, as we lay in the sunshine,
That it wasn鈥檛 like Christmas at all;
And we wished we were back in Old England,
Where the snow was beginning to fall.

We talked of the previous Christmas,
Of our mothers, our friends and our wives,
And the kids that would miss poor old father
Masquerading in Santa鈥檚 disguise.

By now we were feeling real hungry,
And though tea wasn鈥檛 quite ready yet,
We had visions of cake, nuts and crackers,
Instead of the usual spaghett.

But we needn鈥檛 have let our minds wander,
For the fare was the same as before.
I suppose it was just wishful thinking
That made us expect something more.

So we ate what there was and departed.
And that night, as we turned in to bed,
We thought how next Christmas might find us-
Of how many might, by then, be dead.

*The officers in charge

Written by Signalman A. W. Snelling.

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