Second Mate

Two-and-twenty, taut and trim, Likes the girls and the girls like him: All the same, a fighting man, Game to scrap whenever he can. He's a white man through and through, Sort of a bloke to have with you When you're up to the neck in a Dago dive All of a buzz like an angry hive; Sort of a chap to have at your back When things look ugly and bad and black And you're taking an odds-on chance of dying In a Rio alley when knives are flying; Sort of a feller to have at your shoulder Off o' the Horn when nights get colder, When you're fighting down the bunt of a sail On a slippery yard in a thundering gale. For whatever the job in hand may be, A rough house in port or rough weather at sea, A cyclone afloat or a shindy ashore, The tighter the place is he like it the more.