After gulping down the punch, Bill cleared his throat and remarked that he “had thunk out a little song and had wrote it out”—Bill forgot that the wardroom officers knew he could not write a line—“and as the men got arter him to sing it, he had tried it oncet or twicet, and he’d do his best to pipe it up reg’lar.”
He then began, his rich voice echoing musically through the low-pitched wardroom. The officers soon caught the refrain, and whenever it came they accompanied it with much clinking of glasses, and trolled out a chorus, Dale leading. This was the song:
“A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
Tally hi ho, you know,
O’er the bright blue waves like a sea bird flew;
Sing hey aloft and alow.
Her wings are spread to the fairy breeze,
The sparkling spray is thrown from her prow,
Her flag is the proudest that floats on the seas,
Her homeward way she’s steering now.