times are over.
As the chief officer, I sometimes have the tedious job of censoring the mail, which includes my own letters to my wife. It seems a senseless exercise to censor my very own ramblings, because I know all the rules, but the letters won’t arrive home unless they bear the marks and deletions of the official ship’s censor. Having said all that, some of the correspondence between our West Indian crew and the local Welsh ladies needs a great deal of censoring, believe you me!
The mate’s job in a tramp steamer (or does it sound better if I call myself the chief officer?) is never pleasant when loading a cargo of coal in Barry dock. This time it is worse than usual with the continuous rain making the thick coating of coal dust that covers the decks from bow to stern very beastly. The quaysides are hidden under a filthy black slush and the docks look bleak and gloomy.
At frequent intervals, day or night, we must warp the vessel along the quay to allow the fixed coal loading chutes to work another hatch. We have only four West Indian sailors in a watch, so two must be at each end of the vessel when she is shifting with me assisting in handling the greasy wire rope moorings. A West Indian crew seems the only one available at the moment, but they are proving to be not at all suitable and will take advantage of the situation whenever they can. With regard to the West Indians and the Caribbean islanders, the Sailing Directions state:
They do not undertake any kind of work but are content to loll about the beaches, or sleep in their little grass huts, from one week’s end to another. Their extreme want of energy and their existence as far as alimony goes is a mystery to the European.
I cannot blame the crew for wanting to loll about the beaches, but they can’t do it here; my job is to keep them awake and to try to get a little work done occasionally. With the frequent shifting of the ship under the coal chutes, there are no regular meals on board. As usual, the ship’s chandler supplies the stores at the last moment, but because it is after 5 p.m., the crew doesn’t want to take them on board. The chief officer has his hands full with one thing and another; the last of the cargo is being shipped and the loadline must be carefully watched to ensure the vessel is not overloaded, he must keep an eye on the seamen in case they get away ashore and jump ship, and he must watch the stores closely to see nothing is stolen.
The disciplinary rules and regulations for this class of merchant ship during the latter stages of the war became peculiar and unclear. It seemed that the crew could do more or less what they liked, including refusing to carry out a quite legitimate order. They could not, however, refuse to sail the ship. In the event of any trouble, the Naval authorities merely referred you to the police and the police referred you back to the Naval authorities!
Even in cases of rank insubordination and assault, as long as they did not refuse to sail, the law would have nothing to do with it. It was an entirely different kettle of fish if a hard case officer assaulted a member of the crew, just see what happened then! The truth of the matter, and I can understand the reasons behind it, is that the ship must sail at all costs and without delay. Hard lines on the master and officers of these poorer class boats with their West Indian crews – the ship must sail.
One way or another, the ship leaves the locks on time loaded with 6,000 tons of coal under her hatches and eight railway wagons and two seaplanes on deck. I have had only three hours rest in the last 48 hours, so when the orders are received to put the paravanes over the side on this blowy night, I feel inclined not to fool about with them. It is really unfortunate that a slight heave on a wire at the wrong moment rendered the apparatus temporarily useless. I have no choice but to go and lie down for an hour or two! The ship is only going round to Milford Haven, a seven-hour run, to join a convoy there. We are, of course, under sealed orders, but everyone seems to know we are bound for Port Said.
The convoy presents an imposing spectacle leaving Milford Haven: 27 steamers of all types with our ship in the middle of them. The collection is more like a flock of alarmed sheep than a fleet of vessels, with no one following their directions properly for getting into formation; we also had a job finding our place. One way or another everyone eventually gets into their correct position and we set off for the nine-day voyage to Gibraltar. We are ordered not to throw any rubbish over the side; a trail of floating rubbish might give a clue to enemy submarines as to what course the convoy is taking. After three weeks in Barry dock though, the decks on our vessel are one big evil-smelling rubbish heap, ever-increasing in size, which according to the ‘orders’ we must carry to east of Suez! Some misguided persons, however, throw it over the side at night!
A ‘Rock Scorpion’ selling different types of liquor from his bumboat greets us in Gibraltar. One brand of whisky has labels on its bottles telling us ‘As drunk in the House of Commons’, which goes a long way to explaining some of the queer speeches we hear from these chambers. The second engineer, who ought to have known better, purchases some brandy reputedly consumed by the ‘Nobility’. The bumboat man is indeed fortunate he has moved a short distance away from the ship’s side; a couple of the ‘Nobility’ bottles miss his head by only inches on their return journey back towards his boat.
From Gibraltar we join a convoy to Bizerte, a voyage of about 750 miles. We head south across the Straits and keep close to the Moroccan shore, passing Ceuta and Tetuan, one of the few places in this country where we are permitted to make a landing. We see lofty mountains a few miles inland, and then it’s on to Cap Falcon and the Gulf of Oran, where the Algerian coast commences. This is a country of lakes and marshes, enormous salt deposits, and gigantic trees. Centipedes abound and I receive a good bottle of wine in exchange for an old pair of boots in Algiers, the capital. This coast is quite well lit as we pass Caps Matifou, Bengut, and Carbon, but no lights show at night on the ship. The weather is rather too warm for comfort as the small porthole in one’s cabin must be closed and screened at night.
Beyond Algiers the coast seems about as wild and desolate as me. All the cargo gear has to be re-rigged and new derricks have to be shipped. With one man at the wheel and another continuously on the lookout, it leaves me with just the bosun and one seaman to do the job. Appearing in the distance as if it were an island, we sight Cap Bougaroun lying at the northern extremity of a mountainous promontory with the summits of Jebel Agilman and Jebel El Goufi in the background.
We finally reach Tunisia at Cap de Fer and enter the straits known locally as the Canal de la Galite between the mainland and the island of La Galite, with rugged cliffs, grassy slopes, and a few Sardinian fishermen living on the south side. After passing Cap Serrat, we round Cap Blanc and head south towards Bizerte Lake, which can only be entered by proceeding single file down a narrow channel. For six days the ship lies at anchor in this big inland lake that is surrounded by rolling downs and deep green olive groves. The break is pleasant enough, with us being allowed ashore to stretch our legs.
At the beginning of April we are underway again in another convoy, bound for Malta and Port Said. Our ship has been chosen as leader of the convoy and we have to give the signal to the other ships when it is time to zigzag. This has nothing to do with Zig-Zag cigarette papers, but is merely because we are father, and when father says turn we all must turn! A flag signal is first hoisted by a small apprentice boy to indicate the direction in which the convoy is to alter course, followed by a cork fender. When the fender is lowered, all the vessels must turn together. The process is repeated for the next alteration of course. On one unfortunate occasion, the boy became distracted and released the cork fender too early. It landed on the captain’s head, nearly knocking him out, and all the ships turned as instructed except for us. A collision was very near indeed!
We pass to the north of Malta and arrive at the dreary city of Port Said where the ship is moored
