He lives down in his dirty hell
Like a demon sunk in sin
He fights the heap with tool and claw
with wire and dollar gin.
Chorus:
His hands are marked with honest toil
His fingernails with grime
The engineer’s a hardy bloke
While he is in his prime
The skipper bold may stave the ship
Upon some well known rock
The engineer will pump her out
And plug her with a sock.
He’ll keep her dirty hulk afloat
And damn her deep to hell
But the engineer will do his job
And always do it well.
L’envoi
Now Larry O’Connor, you big baboon
You claim to be a poet
Your rhymes are worse than I can tell
To read them is to know it
So here’s a tune for the engineer
And I think that I’ve done it well
If you like my tune we’ll have a drink
If you don’t, just go to hell.
Photograph by L. Ron Hubbard
(Larry O’Connor far right), 1940
