The Red Gods Call
p. 46 · Read in the full issue
There’s a schooner down in Darwin; I can buy her for a song— There’s a thousand miles of ocean flung afar; The old Red Gods are calling, and I want to move along, Nor’ west by west to Palembang, to Zanzi bar.
There’s a half-caste girl in Mozambique, a mart where slaves are sold, There’s a Padre down in Durban that I know; There’s a prospect up in Kenya where I once found decent gold— And the old Red Gods are calling me to go!
There’s a man who was my partner in a mine that wouldn’t pay;
J,ye a score or two to settle with him, so 111 drop my hook in places where the likes of him would stay— And the old Red Gods are calling me to go!
And I’ll take the old six-shooter that I got when quite a lad From the skipper of the Yankee “Angelo”, When I saved him from the knife-thrust of the Chink, berserker mad— And the old Red Gods are calling me to go!
I want to be in Lima on a night that’s wild and free When Peruvian girls are dancing to and fro!
I want to be in Jo’burg, when the boys are on a spree— And the old Red Gods are calling me to go!
While I write in Camp Bulolo, I can hear the roaring dredge, As it digs the precious metal from below; But my heart is on that schooner by the tangled mangrove’s edge— And the old Red Gods have called on me to go!
Bulolo, T.N.G.