Those men—with the age-old British phlegm,
That has conquered and held the seas for them,
And the courage that causes the death-struck man
To rise on his mangled stumps and try,
With one last shot from his heated gun,
To score a hit ere his spirit fly,
Then sink in the welter of red, and die
With the sighting squint fixed on his dead, glazed eye—
Accepted death as part of the plan.
So the guns belched flame till the fight had run