Flight of the Crows

We were out on a training mission

Up in a Neptune, hunting a sub,

The pilot was Captain Grissom

Taking a nap, aye, that was the rub,

The plane was on auto-pilot

Left in the hands of Lieutenant Free,

While I was down in the nose cone

Keeping a watch, beneath us the sea.

The skies were a starlit wonder

Never a cloud to temper the view,

The Moon, it had barely risen

Casting its light with a purple hue,

We’d dropped right down to a thousand feet

As the sonar checked the bay,

Then Free had said, ‘There’s a flock of birds,

Just a couple of miles away.’

The plotters gave out a chatter

Picking the signals up from the buoys,

The Snifter, it didn’t matter

It was detecting diesel oils,

But up on the pilot’s radar screen

Was a mass of darkened rows,

I heard Free say on the intercom:

‘It’s a swarm of migrant crows.’

We knew we’d better not hit them

They could be sucked into the pods,

And then if they clogged the jets our fate

Would be in the hands of gods,

I peered on out through the perspex cone

It was much too dark to see

A couple of thousand crows out there

With feathers as black as could be.

Free said we should duck beneath them

So he took us down real low,

The shapes had massed on the radar screen

There couldn’t be far to go,

And then I had caught a sight of them

The first of these flying things,

My voice croaked into the intercom,

‘None of these crows have wings.’

They flew on the straight and level

Bunched in groups of two or three,

I knew they were something nasty,

Then I heard Lieutenant Free,

He seemed to choke, he’s a rational bloke

And couldn't believe his eyes,

‘If you can see what they are, tell me,

Don’t give me a bunch of lies.’

But who’d be the first to say it,

I was pensive, down in the cone,

Nothing I’d say would mend it

If I was first to say on my own,

‘It looks like a flight of witches

All in black, and each on a broom,’

The crew back there were in stitches

Thinking that I was a Looney Toon.

The coven dived on an island

Covered in trees, and out in the bay,

I thought that we might collect one

But we gave them the right of way,

‘We’ll tell them, when we get back,’ said Free,

That it was a flight of crows,

Don’t anyone talk about witches, for

It’s best if nobody knows.’

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[TPK Stories]

Wonderful story, David. Loved reading it!

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed this tale. The crow. A interesting character in myth and tale. I like the description. Made the situation come alive. I agree with the ending. Some places and memories need to be locked away. Thank you David for sharing the amazing poetry.
Coyote

[Tony Jordan]

What happens on a mission stays on a mission eh David -Who'd have thunk it was a witches AGM ?
I was thinking bats or bullets.
Maybe these would explain those UFO's the crews used to see.
Nice one
:D