Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 42 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a first-person narrative poem satirizing American interventionism in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 20th century. The narrator recounts a life of tropical adventure—smuggling, shipwrecks, and military involvement—before ending broke and desperate. The satire targets U.S. military adventurism, particularly in Salvador (El Salvador) and the Canal Zone (Cristobal reference). The poem mocks both the romanticism of tropical escapades and the ham-handed U.S. military interventions that installed American-backed leaders. The "gunboat came and spoiled my game / With a hundred and ten marines" directly references actual U.S. Marine deployments to overthrow or prop up regimes. The tone oscillates between self-mockery and cynicism about how tropical environments seduce men into repeated failed ventures. The ending offers redemption through luck rather than judgment—a sardonic conclusion fitting Whiz Bang's irreverent satirical style aimed at post-WWI American readers skeptical of foreign military adventures.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
40 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang I then took charge of a smuggler's barge, Down the coast from Yucatan! But she went to hell off Cristobal One night in a hurricane. I got to shore on a broken oar, In the filthy shrieking dark, While the other two of the good ship's crew Were converted into shark. From a sunbaked cliff, I flagged a skiff, With a salt soaked pair of jeans, Then worked my way for I couldn't pay On a fruiter to New Orleans. It's kind of a habit, the tropics— It gets you worse than rum; You get away and you swear you'll stay, But they call and back you come. Six short months went by before I was back there on the job Running a war in Salvador. With a barefoot black face mob. A mob that made me general, Leading a "grand" revolt, And my only friend from start to end Was a punishing army colt. I might have become their president, A prosperous man of means, But a gunboat came and spoiled my game With a hundred and ten marines. So I awoke from my dream dead broke, And drifted from bad to worse, And sank as low as a man can go, Who walks with an empty purse, But stars they say appear by day When you are down in the deep dark pit; My lucky star found me that way When I was about to quit.