308 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
something warm and stirring, ' Steady, Black Watch, 
Steady/ is one of our great favourites on board. How 
jrig^pgl u ^-r~~^ the men thu n d er 
<"' 1 out the chorus, i Die 
you could hear him through half a mile of iceberg. 
The hero of this song repeats after every verse : 
' There 's-a light, in-the win-dow, burns bright-ly for 
me/ placed there by his mother to welcome him ' home 
from the sea/ The boy comes home and finds the 
light burns brightly, but his mother has gone — a sort of 
song to start the salt in the eyes of the very tarriest 
old shell back. Then Tailor gives us 'The Banks of my 
native Australia/ a lovely air, but, with Jack's own words, 
scarcely proper. Odd, is it not, how sailors must have 
their songs either deeply pathetic or vividly cerulean? 
Each man had to do something for the general entertain- 
ment, and a youth who couldn't do anything, and had 
we may, all do. 
Fly we will never. 
Steady, Black 
Watch/ etc. But 
Kiddy's best song 
is * The Light in the 
Window ' — a long, 
tremendously sobby 
song. He put his 
quid on the thwart 
and gives it to us 
with such a strong, 
true voice, that 
