Frigate, gliding secretly
Into mist at twilight
With hardly a sound,
Hardly a light.

The guns are still,
Straight. Unswung.
And not a sailor,
Not one, in sight.

It steals away,
Antennae alert,
Trying to pick out, pinpoint,
Something out there In the mist:

A ghostly insect
Trained to seek,
The scanner in its head
Sweeping rhythmically

In cycles, tracing
Flickering white specks
Upon a grey screen
As it moves on,

Flailing the soft mist.
Probing. Without hurry.
Its one light
Passing silently.

Brett Hayes (R863743)

[ I saw this RN frigate about half a mile away, shrouded in mist, when lying at anchor in the Nore aboard the MV British Dragoon
while waiting to discharge a cargo of crude oil at the Isle of Grain in the spring of 1969.]