The death is announced of First Class Petty Officer Grounds of H. M. S. Terrible, the best shot with a heavy gun in the British navy. Grounds’ wages were 3 shillings per day, and for the unparalleled achievement of making eight shots in one minute in 1901 with the six-inch gun, and seven hits out of eight rounds in one minute under most unfavorable weather conditions in 1902, he received in all the magnificent remuneration of 1 shilling 9 pence, and 6 shillings 3 pence in the two years, “his proper share of prize money.”

The statesman at the council, and the gunner at the breech:
The hand upon the parchment and the eye along the sight:
O, the cry is on the waters: Have ye weighed the worth of each?
Have ye shown a mandate stronger than ability to smite?

He was the best with a heavy gun in the whole o’ the British fleet,
And the run of his pay? Three shillin’s a day, with biscuit and salted meat.
He was the man who could pitch his shell on a mark that was never still
Eight times true while a minute flew, and parliament whittled the bill;
He was a man who could soothe a gun in the race of a swirling tide,
Who could chime his shots with the charging knots of a ship with a dripping side,
Who could get to his mark from a dancing deck that never a moment stood,
Content to hear, for a Bisley cheer, a midshipman’s muttered “Good!”

Never his eye will steady now thro’ the spray and the whistling rain,
To loose the scream from the foaming lips and splinter the mark in twain;
Never again will he win his share in the prize that my lords assign—
Six-and-three in a single year, and once—it was one-and-nine!
Never again! He has fired the last of the shells that the state allowed,
He has turned from the roar of the six-inch bore to the hush of the hammock shroud,
And never a bell in England tolled, and who was it caught his breath
When the Shot o’ the Fleet first dipped his feet in the flooding ford of Death?

Gladder, I think, would the gunner’s soul have passed thro’ the closing dark
Had he known that ye cared with patriot joy when the navy hit the mark;
Gladder, I think, would the gunner’s soul have passed to the farther shore
Had the Mother Land once gripped his hand, and uttered the pride she bore.
Gold is the prize that all men seek, tho’ the mark be honor and fame;
Declare: Have ye spurned by a gift or a word the Terrible gunners’ aim?
Will ye care to know what the men can do when the hosts of hate embark?
What of your sons at the old sea guns?—have ye cared if they hit the mark?