The weekend before we hit the Australian coast ,the Captain deemed the weather fine enough and the sea flat enough ,to have a cricket match. It was to be Officers and Gentlemen ,the deck crowd, and what stewards who were good enough ,being the Gentlemen. Nets were stretched either side of the welldeck,from the scuppers to a height of about 15 feet. We had the proper equipment and the best eleven were picked to represent our side. The captain was umpire ,and I was in the usual important role of, spectator . In such a confined space , the game was fast and rather furious;there was no really safe place to view the game ,the balls ricocheted all over the place. We never played it again ,I think it would contravene every health and safety condition today.And then there were the darts matches…………being a scorer in a rolling sea can be a very hazardous job, and just throwing a double can take forever. I never did sail on a ship that had a snooker table. Table tennis was bad enough; but I digress. 2 days out of Fremantle there was an emergency in the engine room, I can’t recall the full events of what caused the emergency, only that it was to do with a valve being jammed and steam pressure building up to a critical level. The whole of the deck crew were put on to their fire stations ,hoses were run out, the Kidde Rich fire suit was donned with the helmet at the ready .The engines were stopped and every available engineer was in the engine room working like the billy oh to get the valve released. I was assisting on a hose pipe at the engine room entrance and had a panoramic view of the proceedings.
The heat was volcanic , steam pipes hissing and shrieking. The engineers and greasers were stripped to their underpants ,sweat pouring down their bodies. The chief engineer a dour old Scotsman ,his body a mass of knotted muscle, was in the centre of danger, wrench gripped in both hands ,straining to open the valve. The heat was so bad that we in the area adjacent the entrance were being blinded by the sweat as it ran freely down our faces. I was both afraid and awestuck, any sane person would have fled ,but the men at the centre of it all worked with a feverish efficiency ,no sense of panic. Old Wilf ,the bosun ,kept us at our stations with a calming hand “Nearly done now boys” “ We’ll all ‘ave a nice cuppa when we’ve done “ Little and by degree ,the temperature rose at the tension heightened, but the older guys kept us younger one’s calm by recalling similar events they had experienced in the past. So calmed was I that I began to notice the state of the working alley. It was my job to clean it and it was getting filthy with all the activity and gear that was taking place there. I was going to have a hard job getting it clean when this lot was over. Suddenly it was all over ,valve freed, pressure dropped ,everyone back to their jobs. I was amazed at the switch from life and death to everyday. I suppose it was that attitude which led men like them to win against the odds in the last war. “They were only doing their job”
In those days ,we had fire drill ,lifeboat drill, and atomic warfare drill ,every week without fail. Life boat drill was called without warning , wherever you where in the ship ,you had to hurry to your station and get your boat into the water as fast ,and as safely ,as possible. The mate would time you and a very healthy spirit of competition always entered the proceedings. It was always the same team that put the boat down ,that would have been too easy ,we were set against each other and worked with a pride to be the best . We actually put the boat in and the ship would turn full circle while we practised our rowing skill as well. We could get a boat away , from the first warning and into the water, in under 2 minutes. Passengers could feel safe on a Bluey. I was ‘nt too keen on the Atomic warfare drill though, I was to be on the team that had the job of washing the fall out off the ship in the event of an A bomb going off.
In other words, I was expendable.
The morning of our arrival off the Port of Fremantle was heralded by a glorious sunrise ,the sky was a pastel shade of the palest blue against which the silhouette of the dark finger of land split the sea and the sky. There was a gentle breeze blowing from the shore, riffling the wave tops and the gulls wheeled and turned overhead, gleaming whitely in the first rays of a newly risen sun. The outcrops of the horizon began to take on form, set against the sunlit background the geometry of the town began to take shape. I was filled with an excitement as we ran out the rope and springs in readiness for berthing, the decks were being made ready for the unloading of our cargo and there was an organised bustle as everyone went about their respective duties. As sailors peggy my job was to get the breakfasts in for the deck crowd ,we would just have time for before we were ready to dock. I stood outside the messroom ,watching as we neared the port. A launch was cutting its’ way through the blue towards us , it was the bow wave like a bone in its mouth. It was a silver colour ,and, washed in the morning sun it looked almost magical. A young girl stood in front of the wheelhouse, her blonde hair streaming in the breeze, she was only a child of ten or eleven, may have been the pilots daughter but with her flaxen hair and her golden skin ,dressed in a floral print frock, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Remembering the children from that cold northern city ,I was enraptured by that golden child . Sometimes I recall that scene and remember the feelings I had then, this was a country that I would be happy for my children to live in. Australia fair.
Soon the Customs men came aboard and rummaged through our cabins to see if we had any contraband , we had bought watches and mementoes from Port Said ,prayer rugs and pyramids . A giant sized Customs man asked Bootsie if he had anything to declare ,”No ,only a f**king rug” he said ,”Gor’blimey blue “ said the man ,”I did’nt know they made them for that now!” Our first introduction to that dry wit that the Aussies excel in. We did’nt get chance to get ashore in Fremantle , we were only there a couple of hours, but what we saw of the dockworkers really opened our eyes.
Wharfies they were called ,and they came to work in what we would call leisure clothes ,get changed in their locker rooms and set to work in shorts and tartan patterned shirts, they were so CLEAN!!!. They were also sticklers for union rules. Demarcation lines were rigidly observed ,you were not allowed to operate any of the winches while they were aboard .We had been prepared for this by the bosun and lampy before we got there, you did as you were told and stuck to the guidelines ,no exceptions allowed. Apart from that , we found them to be a great gang of workers ,and they all wore trilbies !! Nearly everyone over 20 wore a hat in those days , the hatters of Oz must have made a fortune then.
By afternoon we were back at sea, heading for our next port of call, Adelaide, on the other side of the Great Australian Bight, a journey of many hundreds of miles.
It was high summer when we were there , the temperature was in the high 90’s and we heard reports of the very young and the very old being badly effected by the heat ,some had died because of it. As we sailed down the coast to Cape Leeuwin , we could see the trees on fire in the forests ,it was like a scene from hell ,in the dark you could see the infernos glowing as we swept by . Soon we turned past the corner and ,passing Cape Howe ,had our last look at the land for a few days ; we were now on the northern limits of the Southern Ocean. Here we would gain a loyal companion , an albatross, probably the most beautiful of all sea birds. When Elwyn pointed it out to me ,it was far astern, a tiny dot high in the sky, it seemed to glide lazily,now along the wave tops ,then soaring aloft ,almost to the clouds. It swooped and soared and soon took station above our stern. It stayed with us all the way across the bight ,a solitary giant keeping quite sentinel as we sailed safely on.
I went out on deck on a crisp and early morning ,the clouds like little puffs of cotton wool scudding across a turquoise sky ,a gentle breeze making the white horses on the wave crests, standing on the starboard side of the after well deck ,I heard the sound of the Captains voice intoning a prayer and looked up to the prom deck and saw a huddle of uniforms standing by the rail as the Captain read out some words from the Bible.
A church service , here in the Great Australian Bight? I stood, intrigued as to what was happening, the Captain finished speaking and handed the good book to a middie who then handed him a jar. The captain the took the lid off it and then shook it over the side. A cloud of ashes blew out and swirled through the air, the breeze picked it up and blew it over the afterdeck ,covering me in the process . The Mate hurried down to me and helped dust me clean. They were the last earthly remains of the young man whose memorial I had seen draped in the undertakers window in Hamburg , and here he was now ,in my eyes and in my hair. He had expressed a wish before he died that he be cremated and have his ashes cast into the Bight. It brought home with a force just how small this little planet can sometimes appear.
Not too long before we get to Adelaide ,we should be there a little longer than we were in Fremantle. The tales the older men were spinning around the mess room table were making we three virgins very excited. Lots of young Australian ladies we waiting for the chance to bring us into manhood ,and ,if that was’nt enough ,there were men who would come down to the dockside cafes to find young sailors to take back to their wives so that they could have a bit of young lust. Oh roll on Adelaide ,we are ready and willing to answer the needs of Australias womanhood !!
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Originally Posted by Ged
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