Sixteen Straws

One Sunday morning

While I was out walking

By the Brisbane's waters

I chanced to stray

There I found a prisoner

Layed half in the water

He'd seen me coming

And he began to say

"I was a native of Erin's Ireland

And before I was brought

To this terrible place

They dragged me away

From my wife and newborn

And my ailing parents

I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie

Norfolk Island and Emu Plains

At Castle Hill and cursed Toongabbie

At all of these settlements

I've worked in chains

But of all the places of condemnation

At each penal station of New South Wales

To Moreton Bay I've found no equal

The tyranny there makes all the rest pale

There I met O'Brien

The defender from Ulster

He'd left Ireland burning

Came here for the wake

He was a schemer

A Jacobite nightmare

He could not be broken

But he became displaced

The Jew had one hand

He was a violent man

He'd worn the 20 pound irons

Since before time began

Just before the dawn broke

His starvation awoke

He'd pick the corn from the filth

He'd find laying around

There ain't no walls at all

So remote is the North

The Commandant Logan

Was the devil for sure

His chief flogger was mad

I heard a prison guard say

He'd wash his lash in a bucket

Then drinks the remains

Well I heard a rumour

In the barracks one night

The Jew and O'Brien had fashioned a knife

They meant to kill Logan

But my will was broke

My brain reeled with this secret

And the next day I spoke

They put me back on the gang

With no word of my actions

O'Brien and the Jew

Got 300 lashes

O'Brien came off his triangle

With exposed shoulder blades

His skin never healed

He turned morbid and strange

We was out on the road gang

Just digging a hole

I was struggling with conscience

My nerves had dissolved

To 15 pairs of eyes

O'Brien proposed,

'Shall we go to the gallows

Be done with our woes?

You know the game

Fair play's all I'm asking

We'll draw 16 straws then nothing is wanting

Why should we grasp at the

straws of our lives

When we're only condemned by our will to survive?'

16 straws we did then did draw

I picked the long one

The Jew picked the short

He said 'pray God forgives you

At least make it quick'

14 pairs of eyes watched me

Pounding a a shiv through his heart

And for a few moments there was no

stopping the blood

Then O'Brien said 'friends!

On a scaffold this ends

But it's a long was to Brisbane

And we are dangerous men'

Well Logan was wild

We filled him with bile

He'd seen the Catholic dodge

Plain suicide

We'd ascended his powers

But not that of the King's

Or the judge down the river's

But we was happy to swing

We were marched through the scrub

Off to Brisbane for trial

Chained into a whaler

Set off at low tide

With 6 nervous marines

And 6 Enfield rifles

The arse end of the world

And indifferent blue sky

Well I turned to torpor

At the stern in the sun

But I gathered the others must have come undone

I woke breathing smoke in a chaos of limbs

A red coat squirting blood

Through a hole in his chin

And a volley of fire in my general direction

There was panic and shot

And the smell of powder burning

I threw a rifle up over the side

It was dark by the water

But I could see the shore lights

Crouched down in the back

The wrong side of the guns

Getting scorched by the powder

I thought surely I'm done

I seen ghoulish things

Men show limb from limb

O'Brien was dead

There were pieces of him

I tore off my shirt

I was quite badly burnt

My eyes poured like well springs

They were swollen and hurt

I'm not sure who survived

My whole trunk was on fire

But they borke the chains off me

And I bailed over the side."

Well I was amazed by this poor wretch's tale

I'd heard not of the friends

He had left in the whaler

But I'd just seen the paper

and I had to explain

How his Commander Logan

had died just this day

"He'd set out behind you

He was out hunting game

When he startled some natives

Took a spear through his brain"

Then the prisoner said "good"

I heard someone in boots

I turned around and that's when

The Royal Marines came