The Song of Stoker Lynch (1899)
This is the song of the Thrasher, sung from the South to North,Over the wind-swept ocean, wherever the flag blows forth.
The song of a plain bluejacket, of those who never flinch,
Written in gilded letters-the song of Stoker Lynch. Thick was the fog in the Channel, thicker, it lay on the land,
You couldn't see the jackstaff forward, you could scarcely see your hand.
The Dodman stood out in the blackness, the boats came up from the West,
And there, for a pall the fogdrift, some went to their last long rest.
The Thrasher, the flagship, leading, was first the danger to learn,
Quick as the telegraphs ringing, the links crashed over astern.
No time for closing the throttles, no time to think, but to do,
The engineer drove those engines-he drove them for all he knew.
But quick us tile links went over, they had hardly eased her speed ;
She bumped with a ripping and touring, she took to the rooks indeed.
Lord ! what a scrunching and crushing as she tore her bottom first,
Then with a hissing and screeching as the forward steampipe burst.
Some thought of their homes and mothers, some thought what only they know ;
Some thought of their wives and sweet-hearts, he thought of his pal below.
Down in the forrard stokehole, choking, with Rasping breaths,
Was Paull on the Iron ladder, standing between two deaths.
Below him the rising water, above the scalding steam,
Five feet of pane and burning, and then the daylight's gleam.
But he couldn't force the passage, till a head and arm came through,
Down through those feet of torture, down through that devil's brew.
A grip on his reeking collar, a pull, a sharp, hot pain,
Then he came up through the hatchway gasping to breath again.
It was Lynch who bridged the steam cloud, 'twas he the danger braved,
But he paid the price of courage when his pal's life he saved.
He lingered an a long time, 'twas mercy when death came
To the roll of British Heroes add Stoker Lynch's name.
This is the song of the Thrasher, sung from South to North,
Over the wind-swept oceans, wherever- the flag blows forth.
The song of a plain bluejacket, of those who never flinch,
Written in gilded letters-the song of Stoker Lynch. By Sidney T. Stephens, in the Naval and Military Record. Notes From the Tasmanian Newspaper The Mercury 28 Jun 1899 p. 2.