Many dark days have passed by in old London Town Since a soul could be graced by the sight & the sound Of Old Caleb Finn as he staggered around Always sloping off sideways with terrible faces And gurns & dribbles & shrieks into places That other folk never dared tread, for Old Finn He was cursed with a dreadful, abominable thing Yet his hideous life & his nightmarish end Hold a moral for me as they do for you friend So although you may moan & so woefully beg I'll still tell you the story All sordid & gory Of Old Caleb Finn & his wobbly leg
*
It was springtime in London in 1803 When young Caleb Finn first set off to sea Just a fair youth with dreams of what life might hold For he was but a wee thing of thirteen years old He had dreams of adventure in far away lands In snowy wastes & on burning sands With a fearless old Captain & a faithful crew He would sail round the Cape, cross Pacific blue, Sup rum with dark maidens in the dusky west, Get a skull & crossbones tattooed on his chest . . .
But Finn's youthful fantasies never came true For a terrible fate soon befell the poor crew Of the good ship Mortzesta - the sea winds blew ill As they sailed for the West under good Captain Dill: Only two days from Greenwich came Death the Bereaver When Mad Bob McCutlass got cabin beaver fever . . .
'Tis a nautical term which I'll explain later Suffice it to say that on the third day Mad Bob fiercely mounted the Chief Navigator Who in turn thrust his sword into Mad Bob's fat head And the decks were awash with the gore as he bled And he bled & the crew rose up wild at the sight For they loved Bob & they hadn't noticed the mounting bit
And they slew that crazed navvy without hesitation And they wept for Mad Bob & their loud lamentation Disturbed the good Captain, the insane mournful noise Rudely roused him from sweet dreams of greased cabin boys But when Captain Dill came out to see the to-do In mad blood-lust frenzy the crew killed him too They roped him & swung him & dragged him right under Then with their bare hands ripped his carcass asunder "It's them or us" they cried, "they can all burn in hell" Which made no sense at all, for they had cabin fever as well
Poor innocent Caleb looked on this in terror As the crew slowly realised their terrible error They looked each to each & became so afeared For not one of them knew how the ship could be steered Now the Captain was dead & his pilot in pieces It made them all want to make pee pee & faeces They were all lost at sea, & things soon got worse For as if by the power of some unholy curse They discovered the food stores o'er-run with huge rats That had eaten the lot & the cook - Mickey Fats Poor bugger . . .
I shall spare you the rest for you've guessed it I'm sure As sure as the shadow that wobbles at my door In desperate times the hungry will eat And all hungry mouths will find their meat . . .
It was lucky for Caleb that help arrived soon In the form of a Navy Ship - The Virgin Moon When its soldiers boarded that drifting ghost ship They fell in the mess with a slide & a slip And they saw a sight fit to make fiery veins freeze Where a bloody spray darkened the cold ocean breeze There on the boards slobbering, lips all a-drip The mutineers had chewed up to Caleb's pink hip He had nought but bone from the thigh to the toe And he screamed & he wept all his blood-curdled woe
Those Navy men dived in & Caleb was snatched From the jaws of death - all the man-eaters dispatched Off to hell with a hack, with a stab & a chop With a great crack of muskets & a splash & a plop As the gooey bits got swabbed & swept overboard All those pieces of ate, & chewed, & sucked, & gnawed . . . For the Navy likes tidiness after a slaughter So they shlupped all that gore straight off into the water The deck looked like it had been scrubbed for a week Clean enough to eat from So to speak
But sprawled on the woodwork sobbing, blaspheming Agony unlessened by such thorough cleaning Young Caleb was lame by a chew & a crunch For his colleagues had bitten his leg off for lunch . . .
*
Much time passed & Caleb returned to the city Had a leg fashioned of wood - practical, not pretty His spirit was shattered, his ideals all raped And with every slow step his cold nemesis scraped On the cobbles to mock him, lest he e'er forgate That his own fleshy leg had been cruelly ate
With a dark haunted look, a weird fearsome gaze He wandered the streets in a tragical daze For three & twenty years & ten more Stumbling drunk from door to door Begging for pennies or scraps for one Who sailed the seas but was undone When his shipmates got peckish
*
Now he was Old Caleb & there came a day When he boarded a tall ship that took him away To the East - some say India, China say some Or the mountains of Nepal, where the rising sun Greets the bald-headed wise man, where Finn might find peace For the bitterness burning his soul - some release From the torment - perhaps to find death In the snowy mountains, to blow his last breath Far, far from the horrors of the sea
*
Five winters passed in London Town And Caleb Finn was not around But talk of him never ceased Where had he gone? Was he released From the miseries of this life at last Chanting mystical nothings on a snowy mountain pass?
No one could say . . .
Yet, on an Autumn morn A ship from the East arrived with the dawn At the old city docks down Thames from the Tower And lurked there in silence for almost an hour . . .
'Til an ominous growl could be heard from within Then a crashing & clattering cacophonous din From port unto starboard that tall ship did rock When a long heavy gangplank slammed down on the dock Then sudden across it a dark figure strode That kept right on walking to the Plague Pit Road
'Twas a raggedy figure that swayed side to side With an unpleasant gait in which one leg swung wide Out & then hit the road with a horrible squelch And a croaky throat let out a whisky-stink belch And said: "I'm Old Caleb Finn And I've done a bad sin And I feel like a drink So let me in"
The shape staggered on for twenty three paces Then burst through the door of the vilest of places The Bastard's Tavern - to the turning of faces All agog & aghast that Old Caleb had come With a look in his eyes that could turn gibbering gibbons dumb
The scarred & the lost & the morally rotten Those butchers & butchered & best-off forgotten Beheld the old man with suspicion & awe As his haggard form loomed at the raggedy door The barman Ted Rugg raised his face from the bottom Of last night's used bargain-price scabby dwarf-whore
Caleb swayed to the bar, & he sat him down there And he put down some coins with a doom-laden stare Rugg slammed down two bottles, one brandy, one gin Which the troubled old soul took no time to begin Well he drank that stuff fast, like a fish were his mother Then he crossed both his legs
First the one Then the other
Now the folk were amazed, for they knew Caleb Finn Had a stiff wooden leg, a stiff rigid peg And it shouldn't be moving like that at the shin But it writhed & it wriggled & wobbled around And it made all unbidden a vile squelching sound Not a one dared to ask, who could be so uncouth As to ask Old Caleb the terrible truth? Why a wizened old coot so long in the tooth Whose leg had been wooden since his tragic youth Should now have a limb writhing round on its own Like a wobbly worm that has no bone
But as if he had heard their questioning thoughts He drunkenly muttered, he coughed & he uttered: "I'm Old Caleb Finn And I've done a bad sin And I feel like a drink And I'm already in And I'll get to the brink And I'll get all that gin Oozing out of my skin For it's such a bad sin That I feel like a drink"
And he drank & he drank 'til the sun had gone down And still all the people they gathered around Just to marvel & wonder, the sight & the sound Of that wobbly leg as it squelched on the ground
With all that drink & that terrible grin Soon Old Caleb Finn he now came to the brink And he scratched on his chin And then Caleb started to speak of his time In the East's sublime mountains, that wild weird clime Where nightmarish beasties prowl out in the snow All hairy & scary & awful to know
And he came to explain how he came by that limb As he scowled & he glared in the lamplight so dim: "Though I've walked with this leg for nigh on a year And I need not a stick, & I walk rather quick Yet the price that I've paid is exceedingly queer For -" And he died! & the lamp was snuffed out! And a sinister wind came & bandied about! There were crashes & rumbles of thunder all round As blinding white lightning bolts shot to the ground The whole room became like the darkest abyss While outside the black skies slashed down God's furious piss
Old Caleb was dead, dead, dangling from the stool His poor life was ended, so painful, so cruel The last pulse of life had gone still in his chest Such terror Such agony Such torment But now Old Caleb Finn was at rest
*
In the dark, Caleb's tale hung there unsaid . . . Its tormented teller was slumped there all dead . . . As an ominous tempest surrounded the place Disappointment & wonder marked each pustulous face Yet while lightning went flash & thunder went boom The crowd slowly noticed So slowly they noticed That something was somewhat awry in the room For though Caleb was finished, his death-rattle sounded Yet something was there that quite confounded Them all - Caleb's leg it was wobbling still In a manner which made them feel horridly ill It was slinking & sliding & lifting aloft And as it did, pulsing, would come the strong waft Of a noxious odour of dead fish & cabbage
And thrice the leg turned, & thrice three again And the terrified crowd was still watching it when It began to slink horribly out of its trouser And wobble & lean like some limbless carouser And they saw by the stark & flashing storm light A horrid & awful & truly weird sight That the leg was all covered in snowy white hair And instead of a foot, a big hole was there And it was real hide not some legular wig It was hairy & moist & stinky & big Was it some vile creature sewn onto his hip? Why was it growing & starting to drip? A giant ferret? Some wild freakish badger? No No Fear ye! FEAR YE!
'Twas the piece of the YETI! No mere albino badger 'Twas the Yeti's revolting & huge floppy TADGER! But floppy no longer in horror they saw That longer & bigger And thicker & stiffer And harder & louder The vile abomination was starting to moan And to thrash & its head was all starting to foam All that gin & brandy had got it all randy And tonight the abominable cock would not lie alone
It cast one eye round that shadowy room Where reluctant lovers hid in the gloom Yet before they could rise up & make for the door The abominable cock, with a screech & a roar Tore away from poor dead Caleb's gristly hip And it dived to the doorway & stood there - its tip Glowering down on them, leering & drooling about
But the crowd did not scream But the crowd did not shout
They resigned to their fate, to their horrible doom As an unholy orgee commenced in that room At The Bastard's Tavern on the Plague Pit Road Where an evil thing revelled & crooned & got blowed Deep Into the night
What a terrible night! What a nightmarish sight!
And the sounds all buggered description . . .
Yet before that cock crowed at the following dawn A heavenly mercy was sent from on high When a monstrous great thunderbolt shot through the sky And it scorched all that hideous rumpy & pumpy And left nought but ashes & tree trunks all stumpy . . .
*
Long years have rolled on since the dastardly session . . . The site of that copulous carnal possession Has since been o'er-built & forgotten from thought By the myriad patrons of London's great port
And it is said that still, on a blustery night When the clouds are pitch black & the moon virgin white You can oft hear the groans & the hideous slobbers Of the wobbly leg & its innocent nobbers
The gobbling & wobbling & thrusting & busting The terrible cracks as straining spines buckle The god-awful moans & the deep slimy chuckle The haunting ghost voices of those that still beg For mercy, sweet mercy from the wobbly leg
But they shall all ever dwell in the vile pits of hell Among horrors beyond horror that I shall not tell For their abominable lover is down there as well . . . Such hideous lives & such nightmarish ends Hold a moral for me as they do for you friends For although they still moan & so woefully beg They can never change the story So sordid & gory Of Old Caleb Finn & his wobbly leg