Captain Fitzgerald’s Broadside

They drove the worm through bedrock jaws,

Through smoke and broken shale,

And Richard dropped the mountain down

Across the dragon’s trail.

But still he clawed through stone and fire,

Still shook the wounded land—

Till Andrew leapt from Stormbreaker

With Drakes Bane in his hand.

The sword was made for elder wars,

Too fierce for mortal bone,

His blood ran black across the hilt,

He held that beast alone.

He screamed as if the world would split,

Yet deeper drove the star—

And pinned beneath a mountain’s weight

The wrath called Nidhagar.

Oh toll the guns and raise the dead,

For those who would not flee—

Some men are born to hold the line,

Some die to make men free.

Then Fitzgerald brought his ship so near

Men begged him sheer away,

But through the fire he answered them,

“No dragon lives today.”

The monster turned—its furnace breath

Lit sail and mast in flame,

Yet closer through the burning storm

That iron warship came.

The decks were fire. The gunners burned.

Still powder boys ran true.

With blistered hands they hauled the guns

As dying sailors do.

And Fitzgerald, smoke about his face,

Stood where the splinters flew—

“Run out the guns… hold steady lads…

One final broadside. Through.”

Oh toll the guns and raise the dead…

Verse V

At pistol range the broadside roared,

It tore the dragon wide—

Then flame consumed the gallant ship

Before the echoes died.

She broke in fire, she fell in ruin,

Men burning as they sang—

And as she dropped from heaven’s height

Her victory guns still rang.

Some say Fitzgerald laughed at death

And faced it like a friend…

Some say his final whispered words

Were only, “Fire again.”

Then wounded, reeling, broken-backed,

The great wyrm tried to rise—

The fleet closed in like judgment storms

And blackened all the skies.

But when they sing of Nidhagar,

His slayer’s not the star—

They sing the captain who sailed through hell

And fired the fatal spar.

Oh toll the guns for Fitzgerald’s crew,

Whose burning ship still flies—

For some men fall beneath the flames

And still their courage survives.

The dragon died by many hands…

But all men know by far—

Death took a fleetman’s wooden deck

To finish Nidhagar.

Now when the evening bugles sound

And fleet lamps cross the foam,

They speak of those who did not come

Yet somehow brought us home.

And Andrew bled, and Richard stood,

And brave Germans held the scar—

But sailors lift a silent glass

For lost Fitzgerald’s star.

For dragons die by shot and steel,

By courage pushed too far—

But kingdoms live because one ship

Sailed burning into war.

…and fired one last broadside for the world.