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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365839" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>S.o.s.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(They found her body right under the stairs<br>Where it had lain for twenty years, <br>The neck was broken, I heard folks say -<br>'Too late! ' was the verdict of Gallows Bay) .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'd heard dark things of Samuel Pell, <br>He drank too much and was far from well, <br>But he walked the beach in the early morn, <br>Especially after a gale, or storm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He checked the flotsam as in it swirled<br>Into the bay from the seas of the world, <br>All the jetsam he'd pile up high, <br>And check each mark, with many a sigh.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But never a word did I hear him speak<br>From the crack of dawn to the end of the week, <br>And then he'd hurry on home once more<br>Where he'd bar his window and lock his door.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He lived in a three-roomed beachside shack<br>With a lookout room that he'd built out back, <br>And up to that room he would creep at nights, <br>With the curtains drawn, you could still see lights.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Red lights, yellow, and some were green<br>They'd blink and change with a squeal, a scream, <br>And over all was a dreadful hum<br>As the world swirled through his solarium.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Towering over the roof, at last<br>Was a big, old fashioned radio mast, <br>And folks would grumble in Gallows Bay<br>'Old Pell's up talking to Mandalay.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The folks who knew him from times before<br>Would shake their heads, but would say no more, <br>For everyone knew that his only son<br>Was lost at sea when the war was on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Pell had been on the Ham that day, <br>An S.O.S. from a world away<br>Came tumbling over the ocean's swell<br>From His Majesty's Ship, the 'Camberwell.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So Pell had alerted the Naval Base<br>As the tears streamed over his cheeks, his face, <br>His fingers flew on the dit-dit-dit<br>'Til his fingers bled, and his eyes were lit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But somewhere, in the Atlantic swell<br>The bow went down of the 'Camberwell', <br>She slid so silently into the deep, <br>Carried his son to eternal sleep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Carried him down with the ship, distressed<br>Where a sailor's duties are put to rest, <br>While Pell sat there with his headphones on<br>His wife had cursed him to hell and beyond.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then she'd gone, one lonely night<br>Had left the bay and the daily fight, <br>Just walked, he'd said, with never a word<br>Though whether she had, he wouldn't have heard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For twenty years he'd listened first<br>To the chatter of Morse at a hundred Hertz, <br>Then clattered his key to the whole world round: <br>'Has HMS Camberwell ever been found? '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I watched him, suddenly old and grey<br>As he walked the beach in his aimless way, <br>And heard them talk in the old Bar One's, <br>'I'm hearing that Pell has Parkinson's! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He stiffened up, and he slowed his walk, <br>His shoulders hunched, and he couldn't talk, <br>He beckoned, come to his room up there, <br>He needed help just to climb the stair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His hands were trembling on the key, <br>I knew Morse Code as well as he, <br>His fingers trembled, he made mistakes<br>With the dits and dahs, and the sentence breaks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But in his eyes was the strangest light<br>Like a man who's suddenly proven right, <br>He handed over the headphones then<br>And smiled at me like an old, old friend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I heard the chatter repeat, and then<br>Begin the message all over again, <br>It said: 'Keep listening here, it's true, <br>For soon I'm coming on home for you! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Morse was echoing in and out<br>Like a message sent from a waterspout, <br>It waxed and waned, and said: 'It's true! <br>Old man... I'm coming on home for you! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He took the headphones, took the key<br>Was calm at first, more calm than me, <br>Then tapped a message I could not guess, <br>Old Pell was tapping an S.O.S.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For then a sound like I'd never heard, <br>Such beating, just like the wings of a bird, <br>Old Pell fell back on the old arm rest, <br>His heart was beating right out of his chest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His heart was beating, his fingers tapped, <br>The dits and dahs, they flew, he rapped, <br>But coming over the headphone swell, <br>The message was signed - 'HMS Hell! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He groaned, stared right in my eyes, in fright<br>His jaw had dropped and his face was white, <br>He died, and I thought that his soul was free<br>Though his fingers kept tapping the paddle key.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The paddle key, still tapped in my head, <br>For minutes then after Pell was dead, <br>And still I heard - and this I must stress -<br>The key kept tapping out S.O.S.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">9 October 2008</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365839" data-title="S.o.s. de David Lewis Paget" data-description="(They found her body right under the stairs
Where it had lain for twenty years, 
The neck was broken, I heard folks say -
'Too late! ' was the verdict of Gallows Bay) .

* * * *

I'd heard dark things of Samuel Pell, 
He drank too much and was far..."></div>
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