Dawn Patrol

Goggles down, pull prop and pray
Thumbs up, chaps, and chocks away
In the castor fumes in the cockpit cold
In the puke and fear of dawn patrol
Sailing out into the gold
Sailing out to dawn patrol

Black Wing heads out to the storm
To the hunting grounds across the Somme
To test his hawk in the blitz and blood
And a pox upon all oath's he'd sworn
Sailing out into the gold

Condemned to fly the dawn patrol
Reapers high in the combat zone
Cloud-dodging over no man's land
Tests his guns and nothing's wrong
Now this crate is his and to command

Then dropping like a killing stone
He comes spinning from the sun
Sailing out into the gold
It's the darkest knight of dawn patrol

It's man to man, eye to eye
Dog fights in a framed sky
Saluting those about to die
His ammo's spent His guns are lammed
He gives a nod He waves goodbye

In the ack-ack and the rat-tat-tat
With a silver hip flask to his lips
The tattooed balsa spits and splits
Where the odds are long and the balance shifts

It's a Maltese cross or a fleur-de-lis
Or a bullseye on the mess hall door
Chalk one down to the Ace of Wreathes
In a danse-macabre with the Prince of Thieves

Black Wing in a dream of dreams
Gives his comrades one last roll
The canvas shreds, the fuel is gone
He's no chance now to hedge-hop home

We'll chalk one down to the gods of wrath
Heading west in a dance of death
Spinning west in a blaze of gold
Condemned to die on dawn patrol

A bugler sounds one final horn
No psalm, no prayer. no requiem
Stark and numb is the last post's call
For the pilot lost on foreign soil

Black Wing heads out to the cold
Marking well the bell's bleak toll
Black Wing sails out to the gold
He's sailing out to dawn patrol