BLUE FUNNEL "SPARKS"

An autobiography of a Radio Officer in the British Merchant Navy during World War II

CHAPTER THREE

"Antilochus" 10/11/41 - 2/7/42.



Late in September I passed the Postmaster General's exam for proficiency in Radio Telegraphy and was now qualified to go to sea as a Radio Officer. Better late than never. My godmother, Ruth Marshall who worked in the Head Office of Alfred Holt & Co made arrangements for me to be interviewed by their recruiting officer. Happily I was accepted, but as there was no ship in immediate need of an additional R/O. I was to get myself fitted with uniforms and then report back.

There followed a mad rush in obtaining uniforms, winter and summer; greatcoat; raincoat; shirts; shoes; cap and cap covers; topee; braid; brass buttons and epaulettes; socks both black and white; leather gloves and last but not least, a mosquito net especially shaped to fit a ship's bunk.

A special issue of clothing coupons helped one to purchase the gear required. Naturally it wasn't sufficient to cover the minimum of necessities, so the great aunts, grand parents and my own folks all pitched in with one or two coupons each from their very limited supply.

Early in November I was called in to Head Office. I was allocated to a ship and given some very sound advice. "You will be living in close proximity with other men from all walks of life for many months to come. If you should have difficulty in getting along with anyone, there is no way to avoid them, and tension between you can build up. Therefore, to reduce the chances of conflict, there are two contentious subjects, which in conversation, you should avoid at all times - politics and religion. Good luck and may you have a safe voyage".

On 10th November at the Mercantile Marine Office, I signed on to the SS "Antilochus" as 3rd R/O. There I learned that I would be paid £10-10-0 per month. Income tax would be deducted at a rate of 22½% equalling £2-7-3d; the Merchant Navy Officer's Pension Fund would take nine pence in the pound, and Health Insurance one shilling per week. I had an agreement with my father that I would repay him for the cost of my uniforms at £5 per month, so an allotment was arranged accordingly. Add up all the deductions - £8-19-1½d and at the end of a month I would have but £1-10-10½d left to play with. Percuniary matters were not quite as bad as it first appeared. There was a War Risk Bonus and a Differential Payment to be added. These two additions almost doubled my pay. They were of course, subject to Income Tax. In theory, one was supposed to save one's bonus, so that in the quite likely event that you lost your ship and clothing, you would have some money towards refitting yourself with uniforms.

Should you experience the misfortune of being sunk, there was an extra payment made to help you over the financial hurdle. It was of course, insufficient, and I was later to meet married men who were up to their eyeballs in debt, having had the gross misfortune to have had, in quick succession, two ships go down under them.

The Differential Payment was awarded to all members of the crews of British ships so that their wages might be more in line with the payments made to their counterparts in Allied vessels. This was a laugh, for it came no where near what was being paid to men of those ships, particularly those of America. Nevertheless, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, and there were times when this skinny ribbed steed saved me from being penniless when I was badly in need of a few bob.

Dad was grateful for the £5 allotment per month, for his expenses were heavy. My brother was at boarding school, my little sister was billeted in the country away from the air-raids, and having lost his house, Dad was well out of pocket in having to pay for another. It took me two years to pay back the loan for my uniforms.

In one of his letters Dad mentioned that Mum had had a stint in hospital, and that the £5 allotment for that particular month had just arrived at an opportune moment and relieved his financial stress.

My instructions were to join the "Antilochus" next morning. So, after completing the formalities for obtaining my British Seaman's Identity card, joining the Merchant Navy Officers' pension Fund, and registering with the National Health Scheme, I went home to pack my gear.

Years earlier my maternal grandfather had given me a large "Fiberlite" suitcase for use when he and grandmother took me on holidays. We used to stay at Lower Raw Head Farm in Bikerton, Cheshire. Grandfather had carefully painted my initials on the suitcase. He was proud of his work, but had been slightly annoyed with himself for not getting the letters exactly square on, in relation to the edges. It took a very critical eye to spot the error, but to the discerning it was there and it irritated him.

Grandfather, a retired bank officer, had died some two years before the war broke out. He had been a perfectionist and it showed in his hobbies. For philatelists, his stamp collection was a joy to behold. He played a violin for the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, so he must have been considerably better than F.A.Q. with a bow.

As I packed the case, I thought of him and the holidays we had spent together on the farm. Burning the gorse bushes to clear the land, helping with hay making; shooting rabbits; clearing a pond of weeds; the memories flooded back. They were good, but sadly they could never be repeated. Never mind, Grandfather would have been pleased if he knew his gift was still being put to good use and it would be visiting places that he was only familiar with through his stamp collection.

Next day I ordered a taxicab and headed for the ship. Our family never went in for fond farewells, so Dad had wished me good luck the night before and had left for work in the bank before I had arisen. Mum was busy with household chores when the cab arrived, so I just called out that I was leaving. She acknowledged the call so I closed the front door behind me and handed my suitcase over to the cabbie. He placed it in the luggage compartment alongside the driver's seat. "Where to Sir?" "East Float, Birkenhead" "Very good, Sir" and away we went.

While we were passing through the Mersey Tunnel I recalled its opening by King George V and how, as a Wolf Cub, I had been one of thousands of boys and girls who had lined the Royal Route.

My reverie was broken by the cabbie "Which side of the Float, Sir?" I had not got a clue. Not being familiar with the Birkenhead Docks system, I didn't even know how many sides the Float had. I admitted as much to the cabbie. "Well Sir, there's the West Float and the East Float, and since you've asked for the latter, that cuts the problem in two. However, as the distance around the berths in the East Float is about two and a half miles, I doubt you'll be wanting me to drop you at the wrong gate - could be a long walk Sir. Do you happen to know the name of the ship you are joining?" Obviously I did, so I enlightened him. Not much point in withholding that information. If he wanted to, the cabbie could get the names of all the ships in the Float by looking in and reading the names off the hulls. True the names were painted over, and sometimes difficult to decipher, but the outlines of names that are frequently chiselled into the steel, are persistent and tend to show through many layers of paint.

Arriving at the first gate, the cabbie beckoned the guarding policeman over. "Got an officer here for the "Antilochus" - where's she berthed?" The bobbie asked to see my I.D. card and having glared at it, asked "First trip Sir?" I confessed it was. He then gave the cabbie the necessary directions, and wished me good luck and a safe voyage.

We drove off and were soon at another entrance. The cabbie checked that this was the right place, unloaded my suitcase and took it as far as the gate under the watchful eye of another policeman. I paid the fare and the cabbie wished me good luck.

My I.D. card was checked and the second policeman allowed me through to the quay, but not before wishing me good luck and a safe voyage. This continual wishing me of "good luck" was all very well, but coming so earnestly and so frequently from so many sources, it was beginning to get under my skin - just what had I let myself in for?

There she was, the "Antilochus". Dressed in battleship grey like all her other wartime sister ships. Compared with other vessels in the float, she was bigger than most and not at all attractive. Instead of having the conventional style of masts, this vessel was fitted with two pairs of masts. Each individual metal mast being located well away from the ship's centre line and mounted towards the sides of the ship. Heavy steel girders formed a cross bar between the two masts in each pair. In appearance each pair of masts resembled the letter "H" with the cross bar well up in the upper half of the "H". Small wonder then, that ships so fitted are known as "goal posters". This I had yet to learn.

My interest in the masts was for a specific purpose. The aerials would be up there - follow the leads down from them and you would know the location of the wireless room. There were no aerials to be seen!

The quay side was cluttered with cargo handling gear; slings; nets; and ropes all over the place; dock labourers handling cargo and stores, lorries and trucks bringing cases and drums - organised chaos. I gingerly threaded my way through that lot and headed for the gangway.

Now a cargo ship's gangway is an unsociable device, with an evil temperament. Basically, it is a long staircase comprising a set of steps mounted between two narrow side pieces. More often than not, there is no backing to the steps. The handrails are ropes loosely threaded through metal posts which fit into sockets mounted on the side pieces. The posts wobble in their sockets and as the ropes are usually slack, these hand railings give more moral than physical support. The whole gangway is hinged to the ship at its upper end and supported by a block and tackle at the lower end so that it can be raised or lowered to compensate for the rise and fall of the tide, or the changing draught of the ship as she is loaded or discharged. The whole contrivance sways at the slightest touch so that as you climb upon it, it gives all the semblance of being alive.

Now, because the gangway must be made long enough to reach down to the water level when a ship is riding high, that is in an unladen state, it follows that when the ship is alongside a wharf the gangway is far longer than required and as a consequence, is only partly lowered. So what happens? Quite simple, the flat tread of the steps, instead of being horizontal, repose at an angle somewhat towards the vertical. Therefore, instead of having a nice flat step to tread upon, you are faced with the thin noses of the steps on which to place your feet. Not too difficult to negotiate - once you have become accustomed to it, but for women in high heeled shoes it is a nightmare and a virtual impossibility. For new chums carrying a suitcase, it is a bit daunting, even if you see through the spaces between the steps that there is a safety net between the gangway and the water some thirty feet below. Barked shins and worse injuries are not uncommon amongst those who use gangways, but are more likely to be encountered by those who have spent a well lubricated evening ashore.

Up the gangway I went. Slowly and cautiously and was confronted at the top by a mildly amused Able Bodied Seaman, who had been watching my unskilled efforts. "You'd be the new Junior Sparks Sir?" I agreed and, upon request, proffered my I.D. card. "Wireless Room is at the for'ard end of the boat deck, up that companion way, Sir".

I stepped on to the deck. Ye gods, what a mess! The quay was bad, but this was infinitely worse. Some of the hatches were open and the last of the cargo and stores were being loaded. Winches rumbled and blew clouds of steam over the unwary, steel cables snaked about just waiting to trip you up; hatch boards were neatly stacked, but they reduced the walking space; arc welders were putting finishing touches to some metalwork and cascades of sparks and gobs of molten metal bounced on the steel deck. The welder's mobile generator and electric cables didn't improve the congestion either, and a huge pile of ashes and galley refuse all but blocked my path.

Come to look at it, there were piles of ashes all over the place. Even as I looked, a Chinese fireman was getting another load of ashes out of a hoist and depositing them on the deck. The ashes must have been hotter than he liked, for he stuck his head into the opening of the hoist and shouted his views down the shaft to his confreres far below. I don't know what he said, but from the tone I gathered he was far from impressed with his latest consignment.

The fireman pulled his head out of the hoist and, just as I was passing, turned a hose on to the latest pile of ashes. The hot clinkers hissed a protest and reacted violently. Steam, smuts and flying ashes went every which way. I emerged from this mini mock-up of Dante's Inferno a little spattered, but relatively unscathed and made my way up the external companion way - stair case, to the uninitiated - and came to the Wireless Room.

I knocked on the steel plated door and entered. The Chief and 2nd R/O were ensconced therein, and by the time I had squeezed in, leaving my suitcase outside, there would hardly have been room for anyone else.

Introductions all round. The Chief asked the 2nd R/O to show me to my quarters, so that I could park my case. I was then to report to the Chief Officer (Mate) and advise him that he now had the full complement of Radio Officers aboard, and after that, get back to the Wireless Room, there was work to be done before we sailed.

The 2nd R/O led me around the back of the Wireless Room and across a large metal grille, flanked by the funnel. Coming up through the wide spaces between the bars of the grille, from what seemed to be miles below, deep in the bowels of the ship were waves of heat and sulphurous fumes. Dimly discernible in the glow of furnaces and through the haze of smoke and steam were the shadowy figures of firemen busily stoking the fires and getting pressure up in the boilers. The screeching noise of shovels on steel and the scrunch of coal being shovelled could be distinctly heard accompanied by the clang of furnace doors.

Round a corner we went and my escort opened a door to a cabin. "This is the cabin you and I are sharing. You have the top bunk, so pitch your case and greatcoat up there for the time being". This I quickly did and just had time to notice that the cabin was small. "Now, go down this companion way, cross the deck and enter that alleyway straight in front of us and the Chief Officer's cabin is on the port side at the far end. The Saloon is there too. Beneath us is the toilet block - entry on the starboard side. See you back in the Wireless Room"

Down the companion way I went and across the deck. There wasn't so much clutter on this side of the ship and far less ashes. Made the alleyway OK, found the Chief Officer`s cabin without any difficulty, for there were little brass plates above each doorway delineating the occupant. Reported to the Chief Officer that all the R/O's were on board and went back to the Wireless Room.

Surprise, surprise. Radio Officers not only attend to radio matters, we also handle much of the ship's clerical work as well. My first task was to type out six copies each of "Boat Stations"; "Action Stations"; and "Fire Stations". Not having used a typewriter before, I found this a little disconcerting. I am introduced to a small portable typewriter, piles of paper both plain and carbon, shown the basics of loading the beast, and how to make it produce capitals and lower case letters upon request. Simple in principle, but not quite so easy in practice as would at first appear. Copies of previous lists, now out of date, gave me the layout.

I was left to my own devices and made a start. Anyone who has played "Hunt and Peck" on a typewriter will empathise with the situation. How come some letters can apparently temporarily vanish from the keyboard and be so elusive to find? Why doesn't a shift key shift as much as it should? What on earth is TAB? The space bar had a mind of its own and decided how much space should be allocated, irrespective of your wishes, and the back spacer frequently didn't. I struggled on.

The slowly emerging lists revealed that the ship's officers were European as were the cooks and seamen, but apart from the Chief and 2nd Steward, the other stewards and firemen were Chinese. Most of the ranks and ratings I could figure out. But, pray tell me, what does the Donkeyman do?

My Boss turns up and checks over the lists. The typewritten columns had a few kinks in them, there was evidence of corrections galore and there were spaces where they should not have been and vice versa. The lists were decidedly not works of art. Nevertheless they were readable and as time was pressing, they would have to do. I am told to retype the lot later when we were at sea.

The 2nd R/O took them away to pin up on notice boards whose whereabouts I knew not. It was then time for me to learn about the gear and equipment in the room. The wireless receiver was ancient and of a type I had never seen before. It was mounted against the bulkhead in the centre of the desk which ran the length of the room. This receiver had but three valves in its innards and to change from one frequency band to another, instead of rotating a switch, you pulled out two metal cans containing wire coils from the face of the instrument and inserted another pair. To cover the entire radio communication spectrum there were some fourteen cans stowed in pigeon holes in a rack.

I am told that there are times when this receiver is reluctant to work and that no amount of probing into its vitals has resulted in locating the intermittent fault. But no matter, a fairly solid slap on the left hand side of the metal outer case will bring it into the right frame of mind.

The transmitter, mounted on the desk to one's left, was a model with which I was familiar and since it had no temperamental quirks should not present any problems. On the right end of the desk was a polished wooden box with a framed glass lid. Inside could be seen a mass of gearwheels; cams; moveable electric contacts; a clockwork motor and a radio receiver. Truly a strange device. This mechanical wonder was an Automatic Alarm.

In peace time, when cargo ships such as this one take to sea they carry but one Radio Officer. There is obviously a limit to the amount of time that officer can be on watch, so when they are not on duty, the Automatic Alarm takes over.

This is how it works - Suppose you are on a ship that is in distress and you need to send a message urgently to summon help. For all you know, the R/Os on the ships nearest to you may be asleep. How then do you get their attention? You start by transmitting twelve long dashes each of four seconds duration, with a one second gap between each dash. On board other ships, the clockwork mechanism in the Automatic Alarm is turning a series of cams and electric contacts. When the receiver picks up a signal, the first contact is moved into place. If your first dash is of correct duration, the contact stays locked in place. If your dash was too long or too short, the mechanism releases the contact and moves back to square one, ready to start all over again. Let's suppose your dash and the one second interval were correct and you have now pressed your key to send a second dash. The Automatic Alarm will react by moving a second contact into place. Get your timing wrong and both contacts will be released and the works will reset. Get three sequential dashes and spaces correct and when the third contact completes its revolution, alarm bells will ring on the ships receiving your signal.

Simplicity! Easy as falling off a log! Don't you believe it. There are unfortunately lots of false signals generated by thunderstorms and over the ether comes a continuous hiss and crackle of atmospherics, which are usually of greater intensity in the tropics.

The radio receivers in those days were unable to sort out the genuine signals from the background clutter, so your nicely timed dashes may well be distorted into signals that are too long or too short. Tough luck! That's why you send off a dozen dashes, in the hope that out of that lot, any three in a row will hit the jackpot.

Atmospherics can of course play the opposite game and will quite regularly trigger off the alarms when there is no emergency. A good tropical thunderstorm, hundreds of miles away, could have you hopping out of your bunk and dashing into the radio shack several times a night.

But now it was war time and this Machiavellian device was not used for its prime purpose, its alarm bells have been defanged and the apparatus has been relegated to the status of "Stand by Receiver". It was now used to keep watch on the international frequency used by all ships and coast stations for making initial contact, during those periods when the operator was receiving messages on other frequencies.

Neither of the two receivers had a loudspeaker, for they were not powerful enough to drive one. Instead you wore headphones. During those times when both receivers were switched on, you wore two pairs criss-crossed across your skull. Not lightweight modern type headphones, I might add, but really solid heavy specimens that clamped tightly over your ears. Small wonder that I still have well developed neck muscles and sport ears that lie so close to my head, that I can barely squeeze the arms of my spectacles into the gaps.

On the bulkhead nearest the door was a telephone and a bell push, both were connected to the Chartroom on the Bridge. There was also a handsome brass encased clock which was conventional, except that the three minute periods between 15 and 18 minutes to and past the hour were marked in bright red. Why? Because that served to remind you of the International Silence Periods which everyone observed, at least in theory. Americans tend to have memory lapses. It is during these silence periods that a ship in distress, or a life boat transmitter has a better chance of being heard without the normal traffic hub bub of more powerful transmitters.

The bulkhead opposite the doorway sported an array of switchboards smothered in exposed double pole double throw knife switches. They were used to direct electric current to or from the banks of wet cell batteries that went towards making the whole outfit work.

Below the switchboards was a small hatchway that led directly on to the 2nd R/O's bunk in the adjoining cabin. That was the emergency exit, for the two portholes in the Wireless Room were far too small to grant a man egress.

Under the desk on either side of the knee space were cupboards. They contained the motor alternators; spare parts; tools; the typewriter and stationery. The operator's leather covered swivel chair had arms, and while it could be moved about a little, it was chained to the floor to prevent it and its occupant sliding about in rough weather. Behind the chair was a small built-in sofa and above it, mounted on the bulkhead, a bookrack.

Above the desk and protruding through the deck head were the inboard ends of two enormous long white porcelain insulators that wouldn't have looked out of place in a power station. They encased the leads to the aerials. Thin copper tubes connected the leads to terminals on a massive knife switch. Other copper tubes joined the switch to the transmitter and receivers. The shining copper blade of the switch was an inch wide and almost a foot long, while its long ebony handle could have doubled for a policeman's truncheon. This impressive device was used to switch your aerials from the receiver to the transmitter, and vice versa. While its prime purpose was to prevent your receivers from getting the full blast of a transmission and thereby popping their corks, it also served as a reminder that those folks who get hold of an aerial when a transmission is in progress don't usually survive more than a few seconds.

Last, but far from least, was the telegraph key, or if you prefer, morse key. This was screwed to the top of the desk in a position suitable for right handed operators. How you managed if you were left handed, I am not quite sure. I don't recall ever meeting a southpawed R/O, but there must surely be a few. Perhaps they bring their own key with them and mount it to suit their needs.

A gong sounded somewhere outside. My boss said "Hash Hammer - time for lunch. You will be attending second sitting. Stick close to the Wireless Room in case anyone needs anything. Come and get me if necessary". He and the 2nd R/O went down to the saloon.

For half an hour I was left to twiddle my thumbs and take stock of the situation. I stepped outside and looked around. The activity on the wharf had subsided. Beams and hatch covers were being placed over the holds, a feather of steam was emerging from the safety valve way up the funnel towering above me. Obviously we were nearly ready to sail. I looked at the lifeboats resting in their cradles further along the boat deck and wondered to which one I was supposed to go, if the necessity should ever arise. Made a mental note to ask.

Inside the Wireless Room I looked over the equipment and went through a practice drill of how to operate everything without actually switching anything on. The books in the rack caught my eye. Lists of Radio Navigation Beacons; radio stations that transmitted time signals; ships call signs; coast stations' call signs, an atlas and some maintenance manuals.

I was browsing through these when the other R/Os came back. "Go and get your lunch. Enter the saloon by the port alleyway, it is closest to your end of the table. If the Captain is still there, nod to him before you take a seat. You sit anywhere there is an empty place at the bottom end of the table. Don't start a conversation with anyone who has more stripes than yourself, let them make the opening gambit. Get permission to leave the table by catching the eye of the senior officer present and saying "S'cuse me" before you go. Don't be long".

I went down to the alleyway I had traversed earlier in the morning and entered the saloon. The Captain was still presiding at one end of the table. I nodded and received an almost imperceptible flicker of a response. Thus encouraged, I made for a vacant swivel armchair and sat down. A menu was being held before my eyes even before I had time to ease the creases in my trousers. For one who was used to war time boarding school fare, that menu proclaimed a banquet indeed. I selected my first course. The meal proceeded. All was quiet at the bottom end of the table. Two midshipmen, the Fourth Mate and junior engineers were concentrating on eating. The Captain, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer and Surgeon were discussing matters relating to India, where apparently the Surgeon had spent much of his life in the Indian Army. They soon departed, and the rest of us gradually dispersed.

I made my way back to the Wireless Room. "Took your time!" was my greeting. Now, as I had been away only twenty minutes, was I having my leg pulled or not? The two straight faces gave no clue.

A young lad, about 15 or 16 years of age appeared outside the Wireless Room and said "Bos'un says to tell you he's about to haul up yer aerials". The 2nd R/O rummaged in the tool box, selected a shifting spanner and a pair of pliers. "Follow me". We went outside, climbed up a vertical ladder attached to the Wireless Room and clambered on to the roof. Not much up there other than the other ends of those big insulators and a very large well protected box containing batteries. There were no railings to prevent you from going over the edge.

The aerials were already being hauled up the mast, so we grabbed hold of the down leads before they got away from us. There were two main aerials, one for each side of the ship and they spanned the distance between the for'ard and after pairs of masts. All went smoothly, and once the aerials were secured aloft, we threaded the downleads into the insulators and tightened up the clamps. I was surprised at the thickness and weight of the bare copper wire. It was multistranded and about as thick as a pencil.

Back down we went to the Wireless Room. The Boss switched on the main receiver and warmed up the transmitter. He listened briefly to the receiver and, as all was quiet, keyed "TEST" on the transmitter. The needles on the various meters indicated that all was well, so he shut down the transmitter, but left the receiver going.

"You will be taking the 12 to 4 watches. It is now 13:15 so you may as well sign yourself on in the logbook and we will then be open for business". As he spoke, there was some tooting as two tugs notified us of their imminent arrival, ready to guide us through the dock gates. There was a loud rushing noise as steam blasted up an insulated pipe that ran up the funnel to the whistle located near the top. The whistle gave an asthmatic wheeze and showered the deck below with big drops of water. Having cleared its throat, so to speak, the whistle's second attempt was impressive. Clouds of steam billowed forth and the deep sounding vibrations shook the Wireless Room.

"Never climb up the funnel without first advising the people on the Bridge. If you were up on the platform alongside that whistle when she blows, its goodbye ears and maybe, goodbye you as well. Similarly, no one goes up the masts to the vicinity of the aerials without telling us first". This advice from the 2nd R/O. "I will be back a bit before 1500 hours, the 2nd Mate wants a time check for the chronometers, so I will show you how it is done".

The door had been secured open, and as the headphones had a reasonably long lead I could reach the doorway and peer out. Longshore men were letting go the mooring lines, tugs were pulling us away from the quay side and on the quay two bowler hatted gentlemen wearing fawn raincoats and carrying attache cases and furled umbrellas were watching proceedings. "Bloody Hard Hats from Head Office come to see we don't scrape no paint off the hull when we go through the gates" volunteered a passing seaman, who with the others of his ilk were hoisting the lifeboats out of their cradles and swinging them outboard beneath their davits, ready for immediate use if so required.

We moved through the dock gates without loosing any paint and entered the Alfred Dock. We passed through the last of the series of dock gates and headed seawards down the River Mersey. On the other side of the river I could see the two green coloured copper Liver birds with outstretched wings mounted on the twin towers of the Liver Building. They gradually faded away astern, lost in that grey-brown haze that enshrouds the City of Liverpool. I wondered if I would ever see them again.

The tugs had cast off some time ago and we were proceeding slowly under our own power. My steward brought a cup of tea together with a tabnab, a small type of cake. Signals came and went on the receiver. Nothing that concerned us though. Since the three letter call signs of the coast stations as yet meant little to me, I looked them up in the lists to see who was who. "GLV" for Liverpool, "GLD" for Landsend, "GNI for Nitton in the Isle of White". The enemy coast station's call signs, being German, all started with the letter "D" and they came in loud and clear. In accordance with regulations, I made at least one notation in the logbook every 15 minutes, detailing the radio traffic that eventuated.

A few minutes before 1500 hours the 2nd R/O returned, showed me how to look up radio stations giving time signals in one of the books. The entries indicated what type of time signal was broadcast, when, and on what frequency. We switched on the standby receiver, and found the radio station we required on the main receiver. A telephone call to the Bridge warned them that in a couple of minutes the time signal would be coming through. This particular station transmitted a "beep" every second with a longer "beep" marking each minute. So that you could work out which minute was being signalled, the transmission left out one "beep" in each minute. For example, at five minutes to the hour, the time signal omitted the fifty fifth "beep". That indicated that come the long "beep", the time would be fifty five minutes past the hour, or, if you prefer, five minutes to the hour. We gave three presses on the bell to the Bridge for "Stand by" followed by one press to coincide with the time signal each time a minute went by. The exercise continued until the 2nd Mate rang to say that he had got what he needed.

A couple of minutes before 1600 hours the Chief R/O appeared. I signed off and we changed over the watch keeping. "No. 2 is in your cabin, report to him and he will show you a few things you need to know". I did as ordered, and the pair of us proceeded along the boat deck. As we went, the 2nd R/O pointed out which lifeboats each of us had been allocated.

We walked to the far end of the boat deck, down a companion way and doubled back into a starboard alleyway. The first door we encountered led into the Emergency Wireless Room. In it was a "spark" transmitter, an unsophisticated, rugged apparatus, that contained no glass valves. It could, at a pinch, be repaired if not too badly damaged.

There was no receiver, but should one be required, then the lifeboat transceiver would have to be used. The latter took the form of a fair sized water proof suitcase, and since it contained both a transmitter and receiver, plus wet cell batteries that would not have been out of place in a motor car, it was both cumbersome and heavy. A long coil of rope was attached to the handle.

While we tested the equipment the 2nd.R/O explained that when we went to "Action Stations", his position would be down here. The Chief R/O would be in the main Wireless Room, while I would head for the Bridge and help with whatever signalling might be required. If we were ever to "Abandon Ship", then I was to get down to the Emergency Wireless Room, grab the lifeboat transceiver and take it to the Chief R/O's boat. If the lifeboat had not been launched, then I was to wait until it was safely in the water before lowering the transceiver into it. No good putting it in any earlier, lifeboats not infrequently have mishaps while being launched. If No.1 lifeboat was incapacitated then I was to take the transceiver to the 2nd R/O's. If they were both out of action, and I couldn't see where either of the R/Os had gone, then I was to put the transceiver and myself into my lifeboat.

What would the Chief and 2nd R/Os be doing meanwhile? Either one or the other would be sending out distress messages until it was no longer practicable so to do. I got that briefing tucked away between the ears and hoped that I would never have to put it into practice.

Our next venue was the Bridge, or more precisely, the Chart Room, at the back of the Bridge. Tucked away on a corner of the chart table was a Radio Direction Finder, normally used for taking bearings of shore based radio beacons and from the information gained, plotting your ship's position.

We were going to use it for something a little more exciting. Our ship, together with eight other vessels in the large convoy, had been selected to listen for submarines transmitting to their bases. Naval Intelligence had learned that the German U-Boats transmitted their messages on any one of three wavelengths. If two, or better still, three ships widely spaced apart in a convoy were each able to simultaneously take bearings of the transmission, it was possible to plot the submarine's position. Not with pinpoint accuracy, but close enough to give the escort vessels a chance to hunt and pick up the scent.

To send their messages, the U-Boats had to surface and they naturally kept their transmissions as short as possible to reduce the chances of accurate bearings being taken. So that coming night when the convoy had formed up, we were to guard one wavelength with two other ships, while six more vessels covered the remaining two wavelengths. We would not be keeping our normal watch in the Wireless Room.

I knew how to operate the R.D.F. Switch on the receiver, put the headphones over your ears, select the wavelength required and rotate the goniometer back and forth through 180° until you heard a signal. Continue turning the goniometer back and forth to establish when the signal was loudest and at that moment read the bearing indicated on the goniometer's dial.

There was a snag though. When you obtained a bearing you could not tell for sure whether the signal was coming from the direction shown or from its reciprocal in the exactly opposite direction! When taking bearings of coastal beacons this usually presented no problem, for your charts and common sense would help you select the right one.

Miles out at sea, the story is different and a single ship had no way of telling whether a sub's signal was coming from ahead or astern, or from the port or starboard side. Nor does a R.D.F. tell you from how far the signal is coming. That was why, to obtain a "fix" it was necessary to obtain bearings from a minimum of two ships in order to ascertain a sub's position.

There was a further difficulty. No good just saying that a signal was coming in at, say 72° or its reciprocal, 288° without indicating in what direction the ship was heading at the moment the bearing was taken. To get the act together, it was necessary for the officer on the Bridge to read the ship's heading at the same time the R/O took the signal's bearing relative to the ship. Meld the bearings together and then dispatch the result to the Senior Naval Officer of Escort sooner than quicker by means of a signal lamp.

Signal lamps? There were two sorts. One was similar to a conventional medium sized flash-light, the main difference was that most of the glass was blacked out and only a small round aperture about ¼ inch in diameter was left clear. This type of torch was used at night, and although it emitted only a small amount of light, it was generally adequate. Bear in mind that the glow of a cigarette can be seen for better than ten miles under the cover of darkness on a clear night. The light beam was switched on and off by pressing a button on the side of the torch.

Daytime signalling was done either by hoisting International Signal Flags, which could be seen simultaneously by a number of ships or to an individual ship by morse using an Aldis Lamp.

I had never handled one of these lamps, so the 2nd R/O showed me how to use it. The outer casing of the lamp was a bit like an old fashioned car round headlight with the back portion flat and parallel with the front. There was a pistol grip underneath combined with a trigger. Looking in through the front glass you could see the bulb and behind it a parabolic reflector. Pull the trigger and the reflector tipped forward and would direct a beam of light straight through the front glass. On top of the lamp was a "V" sight to help you point the lamp directly at the person receiving your signal. Power came from a car battery via a long lead and entered the lamp through the base of the pistol grip.

To operate the lamp you held the pistol-grip-cum-trigger in one hand while you steadied the front of the lamp with the other. You switched the bulb on, and having lined up your "target" you were ready to start signalling. Pull the trigger and a beam of light would be directed at your target. Let the trigger go, and a spring tipped the reflector and deflected the light beam upwards and off target. You sent messages in morse by triggering long and short bursts of light to the receiver. Speeds of 8 to 12 words per minute were obtainable. I had a dummy run without switching on the lamp. Not too difficult to master, but I wished that they had trained me for this caper at Wireless College.

Our ship was now in the company of others, and all were taking up their convoy positions. Some of the vessels were towing small barrage balloons some hundreds of feet above them. The balloons were there to discourage any would-be attacking aircraft from making low strafing runs across the convoy.

I was to relieve the No. 1 R/O at 1800 hours so that he could go and get his dinner. As there were some 50 minutes or so to elapse before that time, I was told that I could fill in the interval by unpacking my gear and settling in to our cabin. So off I went. The way to the cabin was easier now. The piles of ashes had nearly all gone. Gone over the side and the remainder were being shovelled overboard.

The cabin was small. If you placed your feet wide apart in any direction you could straddle the available standing space on the mat covered deck. On the left hand side as you entered the doorway was an ancient fold up wash basin, similar to those that used to be found in railway sleeping compartments years ago. There was running hot and cold water, but to empty the basin you tipped it upwards away from you and the water fell into a metal container that the steward emptied each day.

A water jug, two glasses and a mirror were mounted above the wash basin. Next to the wash basin was a four drawer chest of drawers. The two lower ones were for my use. The upper and lower bunks were directly opposite the doorway and they, with a skinny wardrobe took up the entire width of the cabin. A settee barely wide enough to seat two persons and a tiny steam powered room heater took up the space along the remaining bulk head. An electric fan was mounted above the settee.

Swinging the proverbial cat would have proved to be disastrous for the feline unless it was a kitten with a stumpy tail and you had very short arms. It took me all of ten minutes to unpack and sort myself out.

I had noticed that most officers and men were carrying life jackets when they were moving from one part of the ship to another. The Chief R/O had brought one with him when he came on watch. There was one in the wardrobe, presumably mine, so I took it out and looked it over.

The jacket was of a waist-coat type that tied at the front. Made from a dark blue cloth, stuffed with kapok and quilted. Below the back of the neck a rope loop was attached, this for helping a rescuer to haul you out of the water. It is very difficult to get a grip on a man if he has been immersed in oil, as was a frequent occurrence when ships sank. A police type whistle was attached to the jacket by a lanyard. On one shoulder a red light was clipped on. The power supply came from a flashlight battery stowed in a watertight container tucked into a pocket. Another pocket contained a tin of "Etagon" tablets, which, if you believed the instructions, were supposed to supply enough nourishment to keep you alive for days.

Later, I learnt that those who had had to eat "Etagon" tablets, considered them to be made from compressed sawdust, suitable tucker for termites and apart from creating a mental diversion, were of no use what-so-ever. But for then, my ignorance was bliss. I tried the jacket on. No problems. From then on, where I went, it went too.

When I had entered the cabin, darkness was well and truly settling in, and when I came out, all was pitch black. Cautiously I felt my way around the back of the cabin, across the grille, round the corner and into the Wireless Room. All doors that lead outside were fitted with automatic switches, so that as soon as you commenced to open a door the interior light went out and prevented any chance of a glimmer of light escaping and giving the ship's presence away to enemy eyes.

I stepped into the Wireless Room, closed the door and the light came on. "You are early, it's not 1800 hours yet" I agreed, but as I was at a loose end and as it was too dark to see much outside, I had come to find out if there was anything else in which I needed instruction.

Talk about "ask a silly question". Of course there were other things about which I had to learn. Stacks and stacks of them. For a start, wartime signalling for merchant ships was somewhat different from peacetime procedures, so there was a fairly fat manual for me to study and I was also shown the code books and how to use them.

Just as I was getting nicely engrossed in the manual there was a rushing sound of interference from the radio. No. 1 took his headphones off, said "Take over" and vanished out of the room. Not much chance of being able to hear anything, but the loudest of signals through that hissing clatter, so I parked the headset around my neck and waited.

The cacophony ceased as suddenly as it had begun and a minute later the No.1 returned. "Bloody mechanical cow - supposed to have been fixed while we were in port". I raised an interrogative eyebrow and handed back the headphones.

It turned out that the "mechanical cow" was an electric motor driven device that had the remarkable ability of turning a barely edible form of whitewash powder plus a few mysterious ingredients into a liquid which was a substitute for fresh milk. There was now no chance of it being used on this voyage, for by switching it on, it would quickly advertise our position to anyone possessing an R.D.F.

If I ever heard any interference of a like nature I was to call the Bridge and an immediate search of the ship would be made to find the offending motor. No electric fans were to be used while we were at sea, nor was anyone who owned a radio be allowed to use it. Electric razors were notorious for making transmissions and were therefore banned.

The time slipped around to 1800 hours so we changed watch and I settled down to study what to do if attacked by "Aircraft", "Submarines" or "Raiders". The procedures to be followed when you were in convoy were not necessarily the same as those you employed when you were sailing as an independent ship.

Half an hour later we changed watch again. The ship was pitching and rolling very gently, but being unused to it, I was well aware of the movement. I gingerly made my way down the companion way, crossed the deck to the alleyway in utter darkness. I opened the door and negotiated the two canvas curtains which made a light trap and headed for my dinner.

No need to run. I wasn't due to go on watch again until midnight. After dinner I returned to my cabin. If I was to get up at a quarter to midnight, I had better be making tracks for my bunk. Not much preparation needed for getting into bed. The North Atlantic in winter time is no place to be sitting around in a lifeboat clad in only a pair of pyjamas, so it was a case of slipping off your coat and shoes, loosening your tie and climbing up into your bunk with your clothes on.

Now, I am but 5'7" in height, but when I lay in that bunk with my head touching the bulkhead, my feet were hard up against the wardrobe. If I lay on my back I found I was an inch or so wider than the bunk. The mattress was made of horsehair about two inches thick, beneath it were boards laid sideways across the bunk. They were slightly flexible and helped to reduce the general hardness. The upper sheet and blankets were never tucked in by the steward, but folded in such a manner that they almost formed a sleeping bag. Wriggle into this cocoon carefully and your body weight kept the lot together. It took me a week to master the art.

Sleeping on the running boards of fire engines, waiting to be called out during air-raids had trained me into being able to sleep in fairly uncomfortable places, so before I had time to go over the events of the day in my mind, I was fast asleep.

"Wakey wakey Sparks. It's one bell. Time for your watch on the Bridge" I opened a reluctant eye. The light was on and a midshipman was standing in the cabin. Once he was sure that I was awake he opened the door and he and the light went out while a blast of cold air blew in. The door shut, the light came on and I climbed down from my bunk. Quickly I donned shoes and coat, straightened my tie, combed my hair, grabbed my life jacket and went outside. The wind had freshened considerably and the sea was causing the ship's movements to be more pronounced. In the dark I felt my way round the back of the cabin down the companion way and into the Heads (Toilet Block). When I came out I realised that that side of the ship was more protected from the wind, so I stayed on the starboard side as I made my way in inky darkness across the deck, up to the Bridge and into the Chart Room.

The usual "off-on" with the light as I went through the doorway, only this time when the light came on, it was dim and orange coloured. It takes some minutes for human eyes to become adjusted to darkness, and if you were to keep coming into bright lights and then going outside again, your eyes would never get a chance to become fully acclimatised to the darkness. The dim orange light greatly helps to overcome the problem for the watch keeping officers. Without it, their night vision would not be operating at maximum capacity.

The 2nd R/O said that all had been quiet during his watch. Not a chirp out of a sub. He explained that the supper tray nearest the R.D.F. was for our use. On it were sandwiches wrapped in a napkin, milk and sugar. At 0200 someone would bring me some tea. I was to leave half of the sandwiches etc for our Boss to have during his watch. A second tray was for the use of the mates and midshipmen. He was then away to his bunk and I started my watch. Headphones on, no signals coming in, just the feint hiss of static to be heard. Turned the goniometer through 180o, left to right, right to left, left to right ad nauseam to start with, and then after a while, plus nausea as my stomach began to complain about the movement of the ship.

The Chart Room was located well above the water line and quite a bit higher than my cabin. The rolling movement of the ship was accentuated by the additional height. I took several deep breaths and, for a diversion, took stock of my surroundings. In addition to the supper trays there was a chart laid out on the chart table, and furtherest away from me, embedded in the table under a glass cover were three chronometers. These clocks with their faces uppermost, were gently tilting this way and that in their gimbals. Fascinating to watch, as in unison they seemingly tipped the opposite way to that which the ship and you were going. Almost hypnotic in effect and like snakes eyes - deadly. I pulled my gaze away before it was too late and my stomach subsided.

The 2nd Mate entered, looked at the barometer, thermometer and chronometers, made some notations in a log book, studied the chart and did some plotting thereon. "You're not looking too bright Sparks - first trip?" I agreed, and admitted I wasn't feeling too good. "Don't you dare be sick in this Chart Room" came the response. Problem, I could not leave the R.D.F, and my headphone lead acting like a dog's chain was only long enough to let me move about the Chart Room. The 2nd Mate departed. I went into my deep breathing act, kept turning the gonio and to distract my stomach tried to concentrate on thoughts of girl friends past and present.

The door opened and closed and as the lights came on, there standing alongside me was one of the tallest fellows I had ever seen. "Wee" Woodie, first trip midshipman, Derek Woods, six foot five inches in height and built to match. In his hand he carried an empty fire bucket which he presented to me. "With the compliments of the Second Mate". I thanked him, and since he didn't look at all well, I asked him how he felt.

No one can really adequately describe the distressing symptoms of mal-de-mer, but he was giving a good description before he excused himself and beat a hasty retreat to resume leaning over the lee side of the Bridge. Make a mistake and lean over the weather side and you stand a good chance of getting your own back. I tried desperately hard to concentrate on anything other than the ship's movement.

The fire bucket acted as a challenge - I was determined not to make use of it. Time goes slowly, oh so very slowly, when you feel lousy and you don't have anything to do except a monotonous task. Four hours seems like eternity, and seconds drag by on leaden feet. Periodically the 2nd Mate came in to check the barometer etc and to make notes. At least his presence made a diversion and eventually he was a bearer of good news. "We will be changing course shortly and the rolling should ease a bit." Well three cheers for that, my insides could hardly wait.

Sure enough, we turned into the oncoming swell, the rolling eased, but the pitching increased. That was a slower movement and one that caused me less discomfort. The light went out and when it came on again there had appeared in the room, like a genie out of a bottle, a Quarter Master. Clutched in one hand he had two pots of tea. "Here you are Sparks, little pot for yerself, big 'un for the Mate and Middy. Get it down with some ballast and it'll help. Empty guts is no good if you have to throw". I acknowledged the helpful advice and said I would give it a try. "That long streak of a Middy is having a tough time - geez, his belly muscles must be sore". The Q.M. vanished as the light went out. By the time it came on again, the 2nd Mate had reappeared and was looking for his supper. He poured out a cup of tea for himself, selected a sandwich and went back outside.

I contemplated my supper tray. Not with any great enthusiasm, but having said I would give it a go, honour demanded that I would at least make an attempt. I poured a cup of tea, three quarters full, no milk, two teaspoons of sugar. The surface of the tea crawled up one side of the cup and slid down the other, went into reverse and crawled up the other side. Better not to look at it. I unwrapped the sandwiches. One was cheese - no thanks. What was in the other? Jam. Well, that was perhaps possible. I took a tentative nibble. It took time and more deep breathing exercises, but I got the tea and the sandwich down. Meanwhile the 2nd Mate had come back and reloaded his cup. Woodie also came in, poured himself a cup and, armed with a sandwich went back to the wing of the Bridge where he made a valiant effort.

Given time, all things will pass and after an uneventful further long two hours, my watch came to an end. Back I went to my cabin, but on the way a thought struck me. The 2nd R/O should be asleep, and if I were to put the light on, it would surely wake him. Better to prepare for bed in the dark. This I did, without any mishaps, although I found the ship's movements a bit unbalancing when I couldn't see any reference points. A small cabin has its advantages, you don't stagger very far before you come hard up against something solid. I clambered up into my bunk and was soon asleep.

"Come on, Wakey Wakey. One bell. Rise and shine. Time to relieve the Boss for breakfast". The 2nd R/O already up and dressed was shaking my shoulder. Ye gods, it only seemed five minutes ago since I crawled into my bunk at 0410 and here it was 0745 and I was due on watch again. I heaved myself out of my bunk, donned the necessary, and went back up on the Bridge. This was a short stint, only half an hour. The weather was worsening, grey and overcast, the swell was increasing and the tops of the waves were being blown off by the wind. I was only too glad to come down from the Chart Room at the end of thirty minutes.

Breakfast! For me? Logic said "Yes", my stomach said "No". Logic won and I reluctantly entered the saloon, passing the servery with all its attendant smells of fried bacon, fish etc. I shuddered. Once seated, I was careful in my selection from the menu. Stewed fruit, toast and marmalade, washed down with black tea was all I could manage. Woodie was there making a terrific attempt to try and replace the previous night's losses. His efforts were in vain. Half way through his meal he had to retire - hurriedly. Give the man a round of applause, he was back in five minutes and started breakfast all over again. Evidently they bred them tough where he came from.

I went on deck and looked around. The rows and lines of ships in the convoy seemed to stretch for miles. We were in the front row in the ninth line. Way out in front of the convoy, down the flanks and covering the rear were the escort vessels; destroyers, frigates and minesweepers, ploughing their way through and across the rough seas. They were tossing up clouds of spray as their bows dipped into the on-coming swells and water poured off their foredecks as they rose out of the waves. I didn't fancy the idea of being aboard one of them. Life was definitely more sedate on our ship and our movement was more than adequate for me.

I went and shaved. Not too difficult once you found out how to wedge yourself between the wash basin and the door. The loss of blood was very minor. I popped into the Wireless Room. The 2nd R/O was inside doing some paper work. "Had your breakfast?". "Sort of". "Good, get a bottle of distilled water out of that cupboard, a hydrometer, the logbooks and we will go and check the batteries". Up on the roof of the Wireless Room we slid the concrete slabs off the battery compartment. We took a hydrometer reading of each cell in the batteries and recorded the result in the log book. Those cells that needed topping up had distilled water added and then we replaced the concrete slabs.

That concrete was not the conventional variety, it contained some bitumastic compound and stone chips. Its purpose was to stop and absorb small arms and cannon fire. If we got strafed, bullets and cannon shell fragments would, hopefully, sink in and not go ricocheting about the ship. The Bridge and Wireless Room were clad in these concrete slabs.

There were no slabs on the doors to the Wireless Room or my cabin. Instead, thick steel plates had been bolted on. Probably gave good protection, but made opening and shutting the doors a somewhat precarious exercise that required a bit of careful timing when the ship was rolling. There was no way you could pull those doors uphill towards you when the ship was rolling away from you. So, if you wanted to get into the Wireless Room, you would wait for the ship to roll towards you, turn the handle, dodge the door as it swung at you. Quickly slip round it, step over the weather step and get ready to ease the crushing weight of the door as it swung back on the opposite roll. If you did not get the timing right and ended up with one leg on the wrong side of the weather step, there was a good chance of a broken leg, or at least a badly crushed one.

It was a wise move, that whenever practicable to place both hands on the handle. That way you had better control of the door and there was less chance of a mishap occurring to your arms or fingers.

All doorways leading to the outside on a ship have a weather step. This is a vertical barrier about 15" to 18" high and 2" thick, fitted just inside a full length door and mounted across the doorway. They are designed to prevent water gaining access to the interior of the ship. However, they do present traps for the unwary and careless. Should you miss your step crossing over one, as indeed I have done, then you will at least get a barked shin from the hard brass edging on the top of the step, or perhaps even worse, you will trip up and take a heavy fall. My shin took weeks to heal and eventually had to be coated with collodion to get the petty wound to heal.

Never, ever, run down an alleyway and then either try to jump over or put your foot on the top of a weather step as you pass through a doorway. Only children and midgets can get away with that. Standard sized humans will crack their skulls against the top of the doorway, and will be wondering what hit them when they regain consciousness.

The pair of us went up to the Bridge to check the R.D.F. and Aldis batteries, and down to the Emergency Wireless Room to look at the lifeboat transceiver batteries. From now on, for the rest of the voyage this checking of batteries will be one of my daily chores. Where necessary, we put the appropriate batteries on charge.

Back in the Wireless Room we were tidying up when the Captain, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer and Chief Steward appeared. Daily inspection of the ship. The Captain asked the 2nd R/O a couple of questions and then told us that a Boat Drill would take place at 1100 hours and that to be followed by Fire Drill.

When the inspection party had moved on I asked the 2nd R/O what was required of me during the forthcoming exercises. For me, the drills turned out to be quite simple. I merely had to turn up by the appropriate lifeboat wearing my life jacket. The 2nd Mate checked that all members of the lifeboat's crew were present - bar watch keepers, that all lights on life jackets functioned, that our whistles worked, that all gear, rations and water supplies were present and correct in the lifeboat. Those of us who didn't know how to launch a boat were instructed in the procedure.

Fire Drill was easier still. All I had to do was head for the Bridge, stand by, and watch proceedings.

A party of men led by the Bo'sun were busy on the deck below and behind the Bridge some of the men had dragged fire hoses out and coupled them up to the seawater mains on the deck. They directed from the hose nozzles, jets of water over the ship's side.

A small group of men were strapping a man into a large leather cape on top of which was fitted a helmet with a glass viewing port. An air hose came from the back of the helmet and snaked across the deck to the airpump. The pump was of a type not unlike those used by divers. Two men were turning the handles to supply air to the helmet. Once he was kitted up, the man in the helmet was sent down into a hold that had been opened up. Like a diver he took a rope line with him for signalling messages.

Engineers and greasers rigged a flexible metallic hose to the steam pipe line and two men wearing asbestos covered gloves and goggles carried the nozzle to the side of the ship. Valves were opened and shrieking blast of steam, voided over the side.

The Surgeon, Chief Steward and his staff had a stretcher and first aid equipment at the ready. Almost underneath my cabin, men were priming a huge manual pump. Four men at a time were needed to turn the handles on this cumbersome beast. It was stubborn too, needed a lot of coaxing to get it to produce sufficient suction to lift any water from the bilges to the deck.

The Carpenter and some sailors were climbing up ventilators and were tying canvas covers over the openings to reduce the amount of air flowing down into the hold in which the "fire" was burning. Much activity and quite fascinating. But, compared with the equipment on which I had trained in the National Fire Service, this gear was archaic.

The drills were soon over and as it was almost noon I went up to the Chart Room and settled in to my watch.

The 2nd Mate came in at intervals and after he had taken a series of recordings from the barometer, made an announcement to the effect that he hoped I was getting my sea legs as the indications were that we were in for a bit of a blow and that come nightfall it could be getting rough. That being so, I suggested that it might not be a bad idea to leave the fire bucket where it was, reposing in a corner. 1600 hours came around and with it my relief, plus another job.

I was to be Librarian. There was one small room, aft of the Centre Castle and in it resided the books that made up the Library. There was nothing much to being Librarian. Open the Library at 1615 and close it down at 1645. In between times, enter the date and names of borrowers on cards and mark off the books when they were returned. Thank any donors who contributed reading matter, and at each port of call, providing you are in close enough proximity with another Blue Funnel Ship, swap part of your library with theirs. The Seamen's Mission too could sometimes be inveigled into doing a bit of exchanging. All up, there would perhaps have been some 200 books, mostly adventure and novels, but with a sprinkling of classics tossed in to balance the collection.

The 2nd Mate was right. The wind was whistling and moaning around the superstructure by the time I closed the Library. The sea was getting rougher by the minute, and the tops of the waves were being blown along the sea's surface in a like manner to sand being driven along the beach on a very windy day.

Everywhere one looked, all things were grey in colour. The cloud covered sky was mid-grey with darker patches where the clouds were thickest. The sea was a dark olive grey flecked with flying spume that was quasi-grey - a dirty white. The ships were painted in various shades of battleship grey and ploughing into the rising swells they punched up white bow waves and clouds of spray. There was a bit of colour though. Brightly coloured bits of bunting flying from the foremasts of all the ships. International signal flags. Down came the flags and the convoy altered course.

One of the escort vessels was signalling the Commodore's ship by lamp. To my relief, I found that reading the flashing light was no problem. If I had to do any signalling by that method then it shouldn't prove to be too difficult. From then on, I made a habit of reading every winking light that I happened to see. One technical point though; if you are taking morse by radio, you, the operator, can put directly down on paper that which you are hearing. When reading by lamp, it takes two of you to receive. One to keep watching the flickering light and calling out what he sees while the other member records what you are saying. Short messages in plain language would not overtax your memory of course, but a few groups of coded letters and numerals is quite a different story.

There was activity going on up by the bow of the ship. The 2nd Mate, Bo'sun and Carpenter, together with some seamen were using a derrick to haul in a device that looked a little like an eight foot long aeroplane. Once they had it safely aboard and secured, they proceeded to haul in a similar gadget from the water on the other side of the ship. Next they hauled up from the water beneath the bow, a steel framework that was pivoted somewhere below the waterline on either side of the bow. What on earth was that lot? It was getting dark so I went up to the Wireless Room to study signalling procedures until it was time to do a relieving dinner watch at 1800. The ship's movements were becoming more pronounced and the weather was worsening most decidedly. My stomach was complaining, but not too badly when I went for dinner and subsequently to my bunk.

Came one bell and my wake up call, I got out of my bunk and learned two things. Firstly, it was freezingly cold and secondly that the ship was rolling heavily. I countered the former by putting on an extra sweater and dealt with the latter by hanging on to whatever was convenient to grab. Dressed, I made my way down to the Heads, opened the door and placed one foot over the weather step while I hung on to the door and waited for the roll of the ship to help me close it. Nasty surprise, I have stepped into six inches of freezing cold water. I hastily withdrew my foot backed out and closed the door. Why should there be all that water sloshing about in the Heads? We were not shipping any seas as far as I could tell. I hadn't time to waste. I was due on watch in a couple of minutes. Nature was calling and I had a soaking left foot. There was time enough to attend to Nature, an open railing on the lee side relieved that problem. There wasn't time to go and change my socks and shoes, so I hurried up to the Chart Room. The 2nd.R/O and 3rd Mate laughed when I told them about the water in the Heads and explained the reason for it being there. The toilets on the "Antilochus" flushed directly out through the ship's side. The outlets were located a few feet above the waterline, and when the ship rolled heavily, the outlets went well beneath the sea's surface and seawater was forced back up the pipe, into the toilet bowl and overflowed into the room. There should have been a non-return valve in the pipe to prevent this occurring. There had been one, but corrosion had taken its toll and there had been no working valve for some time past. Somehow the shore based maintenance men had never got around to repairing it.

I am left alone with my cold soggy left foot. All is quiet on the R.D.F. The only excitement came when an extra heavy roll set the supper trays and their contents in motion. I managed to steady the lot and wedged them more securely on the Chart Room table closer to where I am swaying about.

Glancing at the chart I noticed that we were heading nor-nor-west towards Greenland. No wonder it was getting so cold. The ship was pitching as well as rolling and now and then would give a bit of a shudder as she plunged her way into an oncoming swell.

I get round to thinking about the toilets. What happens when the time occurred when one has to sit on one? As I contemplated the worst possible eventuality of a torrent of water rising beneath one at the most inopportune moment, I am reminded of a story told to me by my paternal grandfather.

The toilets at his school, Rugby, were strategically placed over a small running stream so that there was no necessity for any flushing system. Schoolboys being what they were had devised a fiendish method of initiating unsuspecting new boys. The procedure was as follows. Upstream, several lads armed with boxes stuffed with paper and straw would set them alight and place them in the water. At a given signal their fellow conspirators would rush into the toilet blocks, enter each cubicle - there were no doors on English boarding school toilets - and would hold down any unfortunate lad sitting on a toilet. "The Spaniards are coming!" "Send the fire ships to burn the Armada" "Singe the Spaniards beards". The "fireships" propelled by the current drifted underneath the newcomers.

Grandfather did not go into details of the injuries sustained, but I guess it could not have been too serious otherwise the authorities must surely have got wind of what was going on, and put an end to the practice.

Time dragged by. The effort of trying to keep my balance was tiring. My wet foot was gradually warming. The wind howled outside. The wooden panelling in the Chart Room creaked. Spray and rain rattled against the Bridge and Chart Room. Now and again the engines would lose their regular rhythm and would speed up as the ship's stern rose and lifted the propellers half out of the water. Nothing to be heard on the R.D.F. Could submarines attack in weather like this? One wet foot was bad enough, but imagine what it would be like if you got totally soaked and were sitting in a lifeboat. Or worse, not even in a lifeboat, just floating in the icy water. How long would you last?

The pots of tea arrived at 0200, closely followed in by the 2nd Mate in dripping oil skins. He made comments to the effect that some folks didn't know how lucky they were to be ensconced in a nice dry chart room while others had to stand outside on the weather side of the ship, keeping an eye on the Commodore's vessel, and copping all that nature was handing out. I made genuine sympathetic comments and tried changing the subject.

"What were the objects he had supervised being hauled on board that afternoon?" "Paravanes" he replied, and since I must have looked a bit dumb, went on to explain that they were used for protecting the ship from moored mines.

Mines laid by the enemy came in a variety of different guises. In shallow waters, estuaries and rivers, they used magnetic mines that detonated when the magnetic field of a steel ship passed over them. They also used acoustic mines that were activated by the pressure waves produced by a ship's propeller. Both these types of mines sat on the sea bed and lurked there awaiting their victims. To frustrate the mine sweepers, these mines were frequently set not to explode until a number of ships had passed over them. Just because a channel had been swept, it was no guarantee that it was safe.

In deeper waters, moored mines floated up in the water from their moorings on thin steel cables and stayed invisibly tethered some feet below the surface of the sea. Deep sea mines floated free to wander wherever the ocean currents took them. Sometimes they travelled in pairs linked together by a cable. Should a ship snag the cable, both mines would be drawn against her hull and explode. There were also tentacle or octopus mines that had long floating feelers which would trigger the mines firing mechanism should a ship brush against them. Cheerful thoughts for a miserable night.

The paravanes, as a counter to moored mines were towed by cables one to each side of the ship. The cables were held some feet below the ship's hull by the steel "A" frame which I had seen being hauled up earlier in the day. The paravanes operated like underwater aeroplanes except that instead of "flying" with their "wings" horizontal, they flew with them vertical. The towing motion of the ship combined with the set of the "wings" caused the paravanes to veer away from the ship. A fixed elevator on each paravane kept it well beneath the sea's surface. When a ship was streaming her paravanes, her bow made the point of a "V" and the paravanes, like outriders, took up positions at the end of the legs of the "V" some feet away from the ship's hull.

Theory had it, that should a ship encounter a moored mine, her bow wave would force the mine away from her hull, but before it could swing back on its tether and strike the ship, the mine's cable would be snagged by the underwater wire connecting the "A" frame to a paravane. The mine's mooring cable would be dragged along the towing wire until it encountered the paravane where sharp steel cutting jaws would sever the cable. The mine would then float to the surface to be detonated or sunk by small arms fire.

When a ship was sailing in deep waters, too deep for moored mines, there was no point in streaming the paravanes, so they were taken back on board, as ours had been that afternoon.

Next day, about mid-morning when I had finished checking the batteries, my Boss handed me an electric light globe. "Go aft to the Firemen's quarters and replace the bulb that has burnt out. Better take a torch, it could be dark in there". I made my way down to the main deck. Bit of problem there. We were shipping some water now and then, and at times there were several inches of water swirling about the deck. Dependant upon the roll of the ship, the water was either inches deep or almost non-existent. I stood and watched the water sloshing about for a minute or two and when I felt that I would gauge the rhythm I made a dash for the Poop. Wet feet I don't like. I got there OK, but only just in time. Water chased me all the way, and surged against the weather step I had just crossed over.

I learnt something during that sprint. Running on the flat is one thing, but when a ship is pitching heavily, you are running up hill one moment and downhill the next. Most disconcerting. On the downhill stretch I almost went through the door to the alleyway without opening it but managed to avoid busting the light globe. Found the Firemen's quarters right aft in the stern of the ship, situated above the propellers. When the stern was lifted well up in the water by the swell, the propellers raced and the noise of the blades thrashing the water was loud.

By the light of the torch I could see that there were at least a dozen bunks crammed around the bulkheads. Most were occupied and half the occupants were smoking pipes or cigarettes. There was an atmosphere that choked you. Thick tobacco smoke, sweaty bodies, the aroma of dirty clothes, dampness, Chinese talcum powder and spices. It was overpowering, so too was the motion of the ship. A few minutes of that combination and I would be undone. I spotted the light switch and tried it. As expected, no go. The offending light bulb was in the centre of the deck head but it was just too high for me to reach. Nothing in the room to stand on. I backed out.

In the mess room nearby there was a small wooden crate, so I took that and went back into the sleeping quarters. Now changing a light bulb is usually a simple matter, but when you are standing on a crate that wants to slide about as the ship pitches and rolls, this adds a new dimension to the task. The only way to control it was to use one hand to push hard against the deck head, so that you and the crate formed a pillar between the deck and the deck head. From then on, you worked in the dark, for your other hand had to remove the defunct bulb and could not hold the torch as well. As luck would have it, the bulb came out of its socket cleanly and easily. Praise be for that. I couldn't imagine myself being able to dismantle the fitting in the dark with all that movement going on. It was like being in a crazy express lift. One moment the deck went down rapidly and left you feeling light and airy. The next moment the deck would surge upwards and if you didn't stiffen your legs, your knees would buckle. The atmosphere and movement were getting to be too much for me. Quickly I put the new bulb in place, grabbed the crate before it slid away and flipped on the switch. The bulb lit. I left the room quickly before it was too late.

At the entrance to the main deck I gulped lung fulls of fresh air, while I awaited the chance to run the gauntlet across the deck and up to the Wireless Room to report that the light was now functioning.

I commented on the awful fug in the Firemen's quarters. My boss replied "Probably smoking opium. The Chinese use it frequently. Nobody offered you a puff? No? By the way, can you use a machine gun? No? Well go up on to the Bridge and learn how".

British merchant ships during World War II were not, as some folks think, entirely unarmed. At the commencement of hostilities they were hastily fitted up with all manner of ancient weaponry left over from World War I.

The "Antilochus" sported a 4" gun, manufactured by the Japanese about 1908 and acquired from them during World War I. This gun was mounted low down on the stern. Sited on the deck above was a 12 pounder. Also mounted on the stern were two sets of racks fitted with quick release gear containing some half dozen depth charges. Smoke floats, in the shape of large dark green canisters about the size of garbage bins, but dumpier, were lashed in convenient positions, so that they could be dropped over the stern for laying smoke screens. A machine gun mounted on each wing of the Bridge completed her armament.

As World War II dragged on, the merchant ships were fitted with more and usually better defence equipment. Some of it excellent and some positively bizarre. But more of that anon.

Men from the Merchant Navy are not normally trained in gunnery, therefore each ship carried a few men seconded from the Army. They wore their khaki uniforms and were referred to as D.E.M.S ratings (Defensibly Equipped Merchant Ships). Usually a ship carried a Sergeant and three or four lesser ranked men. The 2nd Mate, wearing one of his many hats was Gunnery Officer and in charge of the D.E.M.S ratings.

Obviously four or five men could not possibly man all the guns at the same time. To make up the numbers, any members of the crew who were off duty, or could be spared from their work were roped in to make up the teams.

Unlike Naval vessels, Merchant Navy ships do not carry a surfeit of spare hands. There were always gaps that needed plugging and sometimes, when you had passengers, they too were pressed into service. Even the frail usually had two eyes that could be used for additional lookouts, or could help in the first aid party.

Up on the Bridge, out on a wing, the Sergeant was cleaning a machine gun. I made my presence known and my reason for being there. He in turn asked about my knowledge of guns. I told him that my experience was limited to handling my air rifle. To my surprise, he expressed enthusiasm. Apparently the ability to use one type of gun stands you in good stead when you graduate to something more formidable.

All guns have much in common. They all have sights to help you aim, safety catches, and usually fire when you pull the trigger. The differences come in how you load them, what you load them with, their range, hitting power and rate of fire.

There is however one major difference in shooting from the shoulder and shooting with a gun fitted on a mounting. In the conventional way of shooting off the shoulder, you aim by raising or lowering the barrel with your leading hand and arm. You track left or right by swinging your body from the hips. This comes naturally and you don't usually give it too much thought once you have planted your feet firmly on the ground.

With a gun fixed on a mounting and pivoting a little above shoulder height, you have an entirely different set up. The gun is pivoted so that its weight is fairly evenly balanced with slightly more weight towards the rear. Both of your hands are placed towards the back of the gun. With one hand you control the trigger while the other steadies the gun and helps you to keep your shoulder tucked tightly against the butt. Meld your body to the gun so that it becomes part of you, and your shooting will improve. The only way to raise or lower the barrel is for your body to move in the opposite direction required. If you need to shoot almost vertically, then you have to go to a full knees bend position. Conversely, to shoot downwards, you have to stand on your toes. If you want the gun to track to the left, then you hang on to the butt and sidestep in an arc to the right. To swing to the right you of course do just the opposite. Not quite as difficult as it sounds, but it comes as a surprise and feels awkward when you have your first attempt. This is particularly so when the ship has a fair bit of movement.

The Sergeant showed me the basics. This gun was a "Savage". A modified and lightened version of the famous World War I "Lewis" gun. Stripped of all the cooling fins and casing around the barrel it was light enough to be taken off its mounting and fired from the shoulder. I am shown a steel cabinet near the gun, the "Ready for Use" magazine. In it are extra drums of ammunition and boxes of .303 cartridges. I am to be part of a team of two.

When "Action Stations" sounds the team member who reaches the gun first gets to do the shooting, the second man becomes "loader". The Sergeant is aware that at "Action Stations" my prime duty will be watching for or making signals, so in all probability I will not be doing any shooting. However, that did not mean that I could not keep an eye open for attacking aircraft or other potential targets that your gun could have a crack at. Nor did it mean you could not help to reload the gun if necessary. From experience, he said, there usually wasn't much signalling during an air attack - not enough time. The whole skirmish could be over in a few minutes.

Now that we were well out in the Atlantic, we were beyond the range of fighters and medium range bombers. Even if a long range bomber did appear, it would not be coming down low enough for us to shoot at it. Better for it to stay upstairs where the convoy couldn't reach it and lay its eggs from there.

The chance that we would get a shot at a sub on the surface while we were in convoy was also pretty remote.

The sight on the "Savage" was comprised of several concentric rings, held in place by eight wire radii. The rings were to help you estimate where to aim the gun at an aircraft. For example, if a plane was to fly past at 300 knots then you must aim well in front of it. If you did not, and aimed straight at it, then by the time the bullets reached the vicinity of the aircraft, it would have advanced a considerable distance and your bullets would be making useless holes through the air well behind the `plane. Each ring on the sight represented a speed of 100 knots. You estimated the speed of the plane, lined it up on the appropriate ring so that the plane appeared to be flying toward the centre of the sight, and pressed the trigger. Every second bullet you fired was a tracer so that you could see it glowing in flight. Being able to see where the bullets were actually going was a great aid in helping you correct your aim and get on target.

You don't go firing off guns in convoy unless there is an official practice or you are under attack, so I did not get a chance to actually fire the weapon. Instead, I spent the rest of the morning aiming the gun at seabirds and tried following their movements. Quite good practice in getting used to aiming a gun fixed to a mounting.

Back on watch at midday, busy twiddling the gonio, but nothing to be heard. My thoughts went back to that which I had learned that morning. Funny thing that the first gun I should be trained on, happened to be a variation of the Lewis Gun.

Dad had been a Lewis Gunner in World War I. Spent some time in the trenches in France and Germany. Never talked about it much, but I recalled one anecdote that he used to tell. Dad and his gun's crew were to be a little part of a big advance. When the whistle blew, they were to climb out of their trench, run across no man's land and fight their way into the front line of enemy trenches. Dad was to carry the heavy machine gun and tripod. To make it lighter for carrying, it was empty of ammunition. No good giving yourself a handicap when you were struggling through a quagmire of mud. The drums of ammunition were carried by other members of the team.

The whistle blew. The crew got the gun up over the top of their trench. Dad picked it up and started running towards the enemy. He was flanked by the ammunition carriers. The enemy fire was fierce so Dad headed for what appeared to be a quiet spot in the enemy line. One of the carriers went down. The rest struggled on. By the time Dad reached and dropped into the enemy trench he was all alone. The rest of the crew were either dead or wounded. Dad glanced up the trench in which he had landed. To his horror there was a party of Germans coming for him. Not a round of ammunition in his gun, and with his rifle still slung around his shoulder, Dad was as good as dead.

Strangely the Germans did not shoot. Either they wanted a prisoner or were going to bayonet Dad. That couple of seconds delay saved Dad, for a big burly Scot appeared at the top of the trench, instantly sized up the situation and lobbed in a Mill's Bomb (hand grenade) that he had already prepared to throw. Dad ducked and when the smoke cleared he found he was still in one piece, but the enemy had not been so lucky.

The rest of the watch was routine. Just plain boring. I was getting my sea legs and finding life more pleasant. Meals had much more appeal and I stoked up to make up for those from which I had only lightly partaken.

"Wee" Woodie recovered and had a voracious appetite. With that frame to fill he had a good excuse to get stuck into the tucker. Woodie had another problem. With his height of 6'5" it was all but impossible for him to fit into a 5'6" bunk. He did his best by curling up, but because he was solidly built, there really wasn't enough width in the bunk to allow him to curl. The Carpenter resolved the situation by cutting a hole in the wardrobe at the foot of the bunk and installed a shelf to support Woodie's feet. Someone suggested that Woodie in his altered bunk must have resembled Winnie the Pooh stuck in Rabbit's burrow with his feet sticking out into the wardrobe. Perhaps the other middies could hang their washing on his legs. Woodie took this ragging all in good part. He still had problems though, how to keep his feet warm since the blankets didn't reach all that way down. I think he solved that difficulty by tying knots in the cuffs of a sweater and shoving his feet down inside the sweater's arms.

Midnight came round again and I was once more turning that gonio, left to right, right to left, left to right. The movement was automatic and I changed hands whenever the fingers got tired and started to cramp up. In the Chart Room I noticed a printed coloured card which depicted the International Signal Flags with their corresponding letters and numerals. Sooner or later I might be required to give a hand in using such flags, so I filled in time by learning to recognise them.

It was getting close to supper time and I was looking forward to that pot of tea. Even the cheese sandwich. Suddenly a signal - LOUD AND CLEAR - fair hurt the ears. Frantically I pushed the button to ring the bell to warn the 2nd Mate. I twisted the gonio in an endeavour to receive the signal at maximum strength - it was so loud there was no real maximum - the hairs on the back of my neck prickled and my heart raced. I got what I hoped was the maximum signal, took a reading of the bearing and pressed the bellpush. There was another way to get a bearing, go for the minimum signal and add 90°. This I did and was more confident with the result. Pushed the bell for a second mark. The incoming signal ceased. All quiet. I rang the bell several times quickly to indicate that it was all over.

The 2nd Mate came charging in, took my readings, made some quick calculations and scooted outside to flash the result to the Commodore.

My legs were trembling. I had not felt like that since I stood outside a Headmaster's study waiting to get "six of the best". I wondered how my opposite number on the sub felt. Nervous too, maybe, because although he had given our convoy's position to his base, he had at the same time given away his position and might well have signed his own death warrant. Maybe he was just elated and keyed up at the prospect of making an attack.

The whole exercise took perhaps thirty to forty seconds. That signal had been very loud. The sub must have been close, probably within two or three miles.

Supper time. The 2nd Mate came in. "No more squawks from that box of yours?" I replied in the negative, but added that the signal we had received had been very strong. At that moment there was a dull reverberating sound of an explosion. "Don'n'n'ng" followed by several more in quick succession. "Depth charges!" said the 2nd Mate and was through the door in no time flat.

I was left to search for signals, but all was quiet except for the continuing explosions of depth charges at fairly frequent intervals. Woodie came in for his supper. He knew very little more than I did. All the activity was apparently being carried out, better than a mile away on the fringe of the convoy well away from our starboard quarter. He hadn't seen anything going on, as he was posted on the opposite side of the Bridge.

I was left on my own again. Had I, I wondered, been partly involved in that activity? Had the bearings the 2nd Mate and I had taken helped to lead the escort vessels to the sub? Had it been sunk? Were there others? What of the ships in the convoy? Like the players in a field game, individual ships in a convoy never got the full picture of what was going on. Indeed, lots of incidents happened in convoys, and unless you were more or less directly involved you rarely got to know about them.

There were more explosions, certainly some of them were depth charges, but I thought that there were at least two heavier ones intermingled with the others. Very hard to tell though. The 2nd Mate came in on one of his routine check ups. "There are parachute flares to be seen way over on the starboard quarter. Bad sign that. They generally only put them up when they are looking for survivors".

I asked why we had not gone to "Action Stations". "No point really. There won't be anything for us to shoot at, so no need to get anybody out of bed who doesn't need to be on duty." "What if we cop a torpedo? Shouldn't everybody be up and ready?" "No need. The depth charges will have woken up most of the crew. They will be lying in their bunks, dozing and keeping warm. They may have put on extra clothing, just in case, but it is better for them to rest rather than to be hanging about in the cold. They will know soon enough if we get hit. If the action was a lot closer, then that could be a different matter".

I was a bit surprised at the reply - but couldn't fault the logic. Long before I came off watch, all had settled down and there was nothing unusual to be seen or heard.

At breakfast the consensus of opinion amongst the mates was, that it was difficult to tell, but they thought that we had lost a couple of ships from the far side of the convoy during the night.

The day passed routinely and uneventfully. The weather improved and I had a go at retyping those lists. Not much joy in that effort though. Typewriters don't like being tilted this way and that, particularly if their main spring is a bit weak. They show their displeasure by refusing to advance the carriage when it has to go up hill and let the carriage jump several spaces at a time on the down hill run. Experts like the 2nd R/O overcame the problem by turning the typewriter 90° on the table and type sideways. I gathered that if things were to get really rough, a wet towel placed under the typewriter will stop the creature from wandering about.

My sleep that night was disturbed by explosions. Accepting the 2nd Mate's counsel, I resisted the urge to get up and stayed put until called for my watch. By then, all had become quiet again.

There had been more signals on the R.D.F., but my watch was uneventful, and indeed, so was the next day. The day after that, though, was different. The sea had gone right down and had a glassy appearance. Banks of mist and fog drifted about. I was looking at the slow moving gently heaving undulations and thinking how different they were to those we had experienced a few days ago.

Then I saw it - a feather of white water was rising up from the sea and was following astern of the ship next to us. PERISCOPE! Cheeky bastard! Fancy taking a look in daylight right in the middle of the convoy. I ran towards the Bridge to sound the alarm. Halfway up a companion way I looked sideways and spotted another feather of water, but further away. TWO? I stopped and looked around. To my amazement there were feathers all over the place. That didn't make sense at all. Half the German U-Boat fleet could hardly be skulking along under our convoy. Something else must have been causing the columns of spray to be kicked up.

Embarrassed by my unnecessary running, but very relieved that I had not reached the Bridge and made a complete fool of myself, I retraced my steps and went back to the Wireless Room. There I enquired as to the cause of the phenomenon. "Fog buoys - each ship tows one well astern in foggy weather. When you cannot see the ship ahead, the following ship keeps station close to the buoy and thereby avoids the possibility of running down the ship in front".

The buoys were nothing more than a scoop with wings, towed by a long cable. The wooden wings kept the buoy afloat and on an even keel. The scoop was similar to an open ended and almost vertical length of galvanised down pipe. There was an elbow at the lower end of the pipe, and its open mouth faced the direction of tow. The mouth was located well below the seas's surface. The forward towing motion of the buoy forced water through the mouth of the elbow, up the pipe and a couple of feet into the air. The white mini cascade that issued forth from the pipe, gave sufficient contrast to be fairly readily seen by a lookout placed on the bow of the ship. By watching the buoy, he was able to give directions for keeping his ship on station.

The lookout had to be careful. Overrun the buoy, and then you had problems. It takes time to slow a ship down and in the meantime where has the buoy gone? To port? To starboard? Under your ship? Have you damaged and sunk it? Are you closing the ship ahead? Better not to run a buoy down. Keep well astern of it.

There was a catch of course. If you kept too safe a distance, then there was a good chance of losing sight of the buoy in a thick bank of fog, and that too could cause problems. Where were you now in relation to the ship ahead?

The fog buoys helped to overcome the problem of keeping ships in line astern in foggy weather. However, they could not keep columns of ships from diverging or converging. These were the days when radar was in its infancy and Merchant Ships were not fitted with such navigational aids. Officers on the Bridge had to resort to old time remedies to keep the columns in the convoy at the correct distance apart.

Obviously, if you could keep the lead ship in each column on station, then all the other ships, by following the fog buoys would also keep their positions. Station keeping was done by each leading ship in turn, signalling its column number in morse code by blowing on the ship's whistle. Fine in theory, but not so good in practice.

Fog not only reduces visibility, but it plays tricks with sound. It can make sounds appear to be closer than they really are, and of course make them sound far away when they are actually being produced close at hand. This made it difficult to judge how close adjacent vessels were.

Extra lookouts were posted low down on the hull. Sometimes you can see under a fog bank. The lookout in the Crow's Nest, high above the deck, and invisible to those below, can, if the fog is not too deep, see the masts of neighbouring ships poking up through the swirling mists.

It is a weird experience to be high up a mast and unable to see your ship beneath you. Clouds of fog billow below, and you and your fellow lookouts on other ships ride above the fog as though on a magic carpet or witches on their broomsticks. Up there, behind you is a dark swirling vortex marking the location of the funnel. Down in its depths are the furnaces producing the upward spiral of hot fumes that disperses the fog.

Spectacular view up there. But it is not so funny if you happen to be up there during fog in an air attack. You are unprotected and are the only visible human target to attract the enemy's fire as he comes flying in to post a bomb down the vortex and into the boiler room below.

If you are on a leading ship in fog, forget about sleep. The blasts from the ship's whistle carry for miles and you at best are but a few yards from the source.

To keep your station in a convoy you not infrequently needed to adjust your speed slightly. Achieving these minor variations was done by slightly increasing or decreasing the speed of the engines' revolutions. Usually a change of plus or minus two revolutions per minute was all that was necessary.

The officer on the Bridge advised the Engineer of his requirements by use of the Engine Room Telegraph. Telegraphs are marked through a range of speeds from "Full Ahead" to "Full Astern". These markings were far too coarse for fine tuning your speed, so they were overlaid with a second set of markings which read "+6, +4, +2, 0, -2, -4 -6". If the officer wanted a minor increase in speed he would swing the Telegraph lever to "+2". Down in the Engine Room, by the controls, the corresponding Telegraph would ring and show "+2". The Engineer would acknowledge the request by repeating the signal back to the Bridge.

Well, it all happened one night on another voyage. The Watch Keeping Officer noticed with his rangefinder that our ship was very gradually creeping up on the ship ahead. Nothing unusual in that, so he walked into the Wheelhouse and with the Telegraph signalled "-2". The officer went back out of the Wheelhouse and on to the wing of the Bridge.

A couple of minutes later he checked to see how we were placed in relation to the ship ahead. A bit closer. Back he went to the Telegraph and signalled "-2". Again the acknowledgment. Within moments, the officer realised we were still closing so he signalled "-6". We continued to close. The officer hastily checked the Night Order Book fearing he had missed an instruction that the convoy was to reduce speed. No, nothing there. We were now closing rapidly. Again he telegraphed for the revs to be reduced by six.

We were getting too close to the lead ship for comfort, so for safety's sake the Helmsman was ordered to take her out of line and on to a parallel course. Again the officer rang for a further reduction in speed. The phone from the Engine Room rang. "Give us a chance - the firemen are shovelling like crazy to build up the steam pressure! What's the panic up there for more speed?"

By the time they had it all sorted out, we had passed the lead ship and were way out in front of the convoy and up with the escort vessels. It takes time and a fair distance to slow a heavy vessel down.

The Commodore was not amused. We were in disgrace and next morning we were relegated to a new position towards the rear of the convoy.

Back to the present voyage. As we approached the American Coast, the fog became intermittent and eventually lifted. There was a fair amount of signalling coming from the Commodore and it wasn't long before, at a given signal, the convoy broke up into two sections. One group of ships was bound for American ports, the rest, including our ship were to head for the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean.

Our new convoy formed up and headed south. The listening for submarines on the Radio Direction Finder was over and we Radio Officers reverted to normal watch keeping in the Wireless Room. This was a relief after the other duty. One could sit instead of stand. There were signals coming in now and then to relieve the monotony, even if they did not concern us. There were schedules to listen to, news bulletins to receive and a daily news sheet to produce.

While we were up working in the Chart Room, there was very little chance to keep up to date with what was going on at the battle fronts or indeed the world. Remember, no one could use a privately owned receiver, lest it oscillated, and gave our position away. The Chief and 2nd R/O had managed to garner some crumbs of information by doing some extra stints during their time off watch. Now it would be a whole lot easier to intercept news items from Reuters and A.A.P. as there was always someone in the Wireless Room and frequently two of us. It was a whole lot cosier too.

There was one snag in working in the Wireless Room - the brass work. Nearly 200 bits and pieces, ranging from the clock on the bulkhead to the clips for holding the fuses. The multitude of contacts and knife blades on the exposed switches; the aerial leads; the door knob; the cleats; dogs and frames of the port holes; they were all made of brass or copper and each and every bit had to be cleaned and polished daily. Salt air very quickly dulls the finish and every Chief R/O I ever met got mightily upset if he couldn't study his features in the reflection of even the minutest piece of brass.

No prizes for guessing who copped this chore. Now, while cleaning brass is a slightly messy and boring task, its most unpleasant aspect is the smell it leaves on your fingers. Nothing I ever tried seemed to take it away once the Brasso had impregnated the skin. The rewards for polishing the brass were two fold, nay threefold. One, it looked good when it was done, two, it helped to while away the hours on duty and three, if done properly, kept the Boss off my back.

For polishing the brass there were three things for which I was constantly on the lookout. They were, worn out singlets, and toothbrushes and new tins of Brasso. The first two items came from other members of the crew. The Brasso was supplied from Head Office stores,but there was a snag, it didn't matter how many tins of Brasso you ordered, one and one tin only was ever supplied. If the voyage was short, all well and good, but a voyage of some months duration left you thirsting for fresh supplies. Over the years I bought a number of tins in foreign ports at my expense.

The new chum invariably falls into the traps and I was no exception. There was an occasion when the ship was in port and I was polishing the brass. I was wearing my cap at the time, not something that I would normally be doing if I had been on watch and wearing headphones. The polishing cloth slipped out of my fingers and fell to the deck. I bent forward to pick it up. "FLASH-PHUT". Startled I jumped backward and left my cap welded to a pair of switch contacts. My bending forward to retrieve the cloth had caused the metal crown of the cap's badge to touch the contacts causing a short circuit which welded the badge to the switch. A fuse had blown with the overload. It took me a few minutes to free my cap, file smooth the contacts and repair the fuse.

Somewhere along the line of my seafaring career I met a R/O who had solved the problem of polishing brass. "I only polish it once". Said he "Then I give it a coating of clear lacquer. Choose a nice hot dry day to do the coating, and it will look good for months."

I could hardly wait for the chance to get ashore, buy a tin of lacquer and treat the brass work in accordance with his advice. It wasn't long before I had acquired a tin of the wondrous fluid. The weather conditions were right, so I polished the brass with extra care and coated the lot with lacquer. It was brilliant and looked fabulous.

I didn't tell the other R/Os what I had done, just waited to see what the reactions would be. There wasn't any reaction at all. Not a skerrick, until some days had passed and the Chief R/O said "I haven't seen you polishing the brass lately", so, looking smug, I asked him if he though the brass looked OK? He agreed it did, but being suspicious, asked how it could look so good if I wasn't polishing it. Full of enthusiasm, I enlightened him of the virtues of clear lacquer. The Chief R/O was intrigued. He inspected the brass work closely, couldn't fault it, and turned to me and said "Get the bloody stuff off and never coat the brass work again!" Some folks sure have the knack of spoiling other's little pleasures.

These days, at home, we have a few brass ornaments around the house. When they need polishing, I of course have the honour of applying the Brasso. It still stinks the same as ever it did, but a pair of industrial strength rubber gloves saves my hands from becoming contaminated.

Back to the convoy. We are heading south and the weather is improving by the hour. A message comes from the Commodore via the signal flags. There is to be a practice shoot of small arms. Nothing too exciting about that. All we are permitted to do is to fire a few rounds from both our machine guns. Not having actually fired one before, I am given the chance to loose off a couple of short bursts, and I mean short bursts.

Like all British Merchant Ships we were very short on ammunition. A few hundred rounds for the machine guns, no more than 18 rounds for the 12 pdr and only half a dozen or so shells for the 4" gun. Along with the others I go through the drill and at the appointed hour am allowed to fire two bursts of five shots.

In convoy, you have to be careful where you aim lest you hit one of the neighbouring ships. You are therefore ordered to fire on a "safe bearing". Most American merchant ships were armed to the teeth like Mexican Bandits, and with enough ammunition to start a full scale revolution. They frequently interpreted "safe bearing" as being any direction other than that of hitting parts of their own ship. If you were close to a Yank during firing practice, it was prudent to be cautious and get under cover rather than stand around and watch the pyrotechnical display of hundreds of tracer shells and bullets spraying all over the place from the American's guns. Several times, ships that I have been on, were hit by stray bullets fired by our over enthusiastic allies. Now and again bullets were found embedded in wooden hatch covers, or lying bent and battered in the scuppers where they had rolled after ricocheting off some metal work.

As I was becoming more proficient at doing my various tasks, I got through them quicker, and that in turn gave me more opportunity to notice what other members of the crew were doing. For instance, at noon on fine days, all the mates and the Captain, armed with their sextants, gathered on the Bridge to take sightings of the sun. Calculations following from their readings plotted our position. At night, star sightings were taken and used in a similar manner.

The Carpenter made periodic rounds of the ship along the main deck. At intervals along the deck, there were pipes leading down into the double bottom, freshwater and ballast tanks. At each pipe the Carpenter stopped, unscrewed the brass cover plug and lowered into the pipe a dip stick attached to a heaving line. Once the dip stick had touched the bottom of the tank, he hauled it up and checked it to see whether we had any water where there should not have been any. Or conversely, perhaps our supplies of drinking water were being used too quickly. All his soundings were recorded in a log book.

The Bo'sun kept the sailors busy doing maintenance work on the cargo handling gear, greasing this and painting that. There was always something that needed adjusting or repairing.

The 2nd Mate as Gunnery officer had the D.E.M.S ratings in his charge. He, they and other members of the 4" and 12 pdr guns might not have had much ammunition, but they were determined to make each shot count if they were ever to go into action. Daily, when the weather was reasonable they practiced and practiced the motions of loading, aiming and firing the guns. The Engineers had made them dummy shells and charges so that they could be used to go through the motions without the risk of there being any unfortunate mishaps.

I used to watch them training. R/Os don't get to be part of the crews of the bigger guns. Be close to one of them when they fire, and you won't be able to hear much morse for some time afterwards.

Loading the 4" was quite a prolonged procedure. It was as I mentioned earlier, archaic. Modern guns of that size have the shell and the propelling charge fixed together and look like a king sized bullet with its cartridge case. Not so with that old battler. The gunners had to open the breach, place a shell in its mouth, shove the shell right up the breach with a ramrod, two bags of cordite were rammed in after the shell. The breach was then closed and a brass cartridge, not unlike a .303 cartridge without the bullet, was inserted into a chamber in the breach. The gun was fired by pulling a lanyard. This released the mechanism which forced the firing pin to strike the cartridge which exploded and ignited the cordite. Away went the shell. After firing, the breach had to be swabbed out with water least any residual sparks, or too much heat should prematurely ignite the next loading of cordite.

Complex and quite a bit to learn. Each member of the gun's crew learnt not only his part, but could take over any one else's duty should there be casualties. There were extra hands trained as reserves, should they be needed.

The 12 pdr was far less cumbersome. The shells and the propellant were still separate, but instead of the cordite being in bags, it came in brass shell cases. No need to use a ramrod nor to swab the gun each time it fired. Because this gun was a dual purpose one, in as much as it could be used against subs or aircraft, the shells it fired could be set to explode after a given interval. It was the task of the range finder to calculate the distance to the target, the time it would take for a shell to travel that distance and to call out the result to the fuse setter. The latter would make the necessary adjustment to the timing mechanism in the nose cone of the shell. To help speed things up and reduce the time taken to set the fuses, groups of shells were already set at several different timings and were colour coded accordingly. The fuse setter therefore only had to make minor adjustments if he selected a shell already set to approximately the time required. Quick thinking, a bit of anticipation and accuracy were essential if the shells were to burst anywhere near their target. Slow targets were fairly easy to judge, but aircraft coming at you at 250/300 mph left you practically no time to get the fuses set.

The gun's crew trained and practiced sometimes together and sometimes with just part of the team doing their own particular thing. Day after day they kept at it. They didn't know it then, but they were to get their reward.

We continued our journey southward. The weather got warmer and it was not long before we were ordered to change into our white summer uniforms. Long white drill trousers, a jacket of the same material that had long sleeves and brass buttons all the way from the waist to the collar. Epaulettes graced the shoulders. All starched up so that the whole lot was as stiff as a board. These uniforms looked smart, but were most uncomfortable and impracticable. They were surprisingly hot to wear and so rough and starched that they abraded your skin. The metal clips holding the epaulettes dug into your shoulders unless you wore a shirt under the jacket. Being white, they showed up the least little dirty mark.

We R/Os had a difficult time trying to keep our uniforms clean. The soot and ash coming up from the stokehold gave us a real problem. To get a whole day's wear out of one set of "whites" was an achievement. I owned but three sets, so I had to be extra careful. Happily, my Chinese steward was a good laundry man. For a small fee he would take a uniform away in the morning and have it back to you in the evening all pristine and so starched up, it was almost able to stand up by itself unaided.

Later, on other ships, I was not so lucky and had to fend for myself. Became quite a dab hand with an iron and could even manage a fair result with the starch too. By then, white shorts, shirts and knee length socks were permitted. Much, much cooler to wear and easier to maintain. As the war progressed, khaki uniforms crept into vogue - unless you were carrying passengers - and they were far more practical.

We called into Bermuda and dropped anchor in the harbour. No going ashore. We were to wait overnight for reasons that escape me, before resuming our journey south. The water in the harbour was crystal clear, and it was possible to see right down to the sandy bottom. It was so clear that it appeared to be shallow. Fish could be seen swimming about and a beautiful electric blue eel went wriggling past, looking for all the world like a very wide ribbon.

The Chinese members of the crew were busy with fishing lines and landed a number of sting rays. These they gutted and then stretched them out on wooden sticks and hung them up in the sun to dry. We hoisted anchor next morning and continued on our way to Colon, the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean. Once there we would be able to relax a bit. We would be out of the Atlantic and away from the U-boats. True, there was the chance that we might encounter an armed raider, but the odds on that happening were pretty remote.

Eight days or so later we arrived at Colon having one night sneaked through one of the passages between the islands of the West Indies and then crossed the Caribbean Sea.

At Colon we waited for our turn at the coaling station, and then moved into place to take on coal. Tons and tons of the stuff was poured down chutes and into the little hatches that led down into the bunkers. Coal dust flew everywhere. It got between your teeth and into your eyes and hair. All the surfaces of our cabin and the Wireless Room got a patina of dust. Even the sheets inside your bunk felt gritty when you climbed between them. It was an impossibility to keep your "whites" clean. Periodically the coal stopped coming down the chutes. During these breaks, shore based trimmers climbed into the bunkers and shovelled the coal into the far corners of the bunkers to ensure that they were being filled to capacity.

Our crew were given the chance to draw an advance as we were to continue coaling throughout the night. The Chief R/O went ashore and obtained the money from the shipping agents. After he came back we three R/Os worked out the exchange rates between dollars and pounds and made up the pay envelopes. Most of the crew, like myself, had hardly any money to draw upon, so we did not put in for any, preferring to hang on to what we had for better things to come. Evening came, the coaling continued. It was a hot sultry night. We were not keeping a radio watch and as I was not required to be on board for a couple of hours I decided to go ashore. I wandered down the gangway, crossed the coal dust covered wharf and strolled into town. Nothing much to see or do. This was my first time ashore in a foreign port and the only thing that really impressed me was the tremendous continuous shrilling noise of the cicadas in the trees. I had no idea what a cicada was, and when told that they were large flying insects, some two to three inches long, I found it hard to believe that such a small creature could produce such a deafening racket.

A Pilot came aboard early next morning and guided us through a dredged channel about eight miles long to Gatun. The first of the lock gates opened and we moved in. The gates closed behind us. The lock chambers are huge at 110 feet wide, 1,000 feet long and 81 feet deep. In those days they could accommodate almost any ship afloat. Times have changed. Supertankers and the like are now built too large to fit into these locks.

The locks were built in parallel pairs so it is possible for ships proceeding in opposite directions to continue their journey without having to wait for a ship going in the other direction to pass through a set of locks. There are three pairs of locks, in series, at Gatun, one pair at Pedro Miguel and two more pairs at Miraflores at the Panama end of the Canal. On the top of the thick sided walls of the chambers are railway lines with a third rail lying between the conventional two. This third rail is toothed and forms the rack of the rack and pinion drive needed to give traction to the electric locomotives ("mules") that haul ships through the locks.

As our ship floated into the chamber, four "mules", two on each wall, each released a steel cable from a reel mounted on its back. We attached the cables one to each side of the bow and stern. By hauling in or slackening off the cables, the "mule" drivers can keep your ship in the middle of the chamber.

As soon as your ship is in position, water starts flowing into the chamber through pipes in its floor, your ship starts to rise. It takes about fifteen minutes for the swirling incoming water to fill the chamber and lift your ship to the top. As the ship comes slowly upwards, the "mules" keep hauling in the slack forming in the cables and keep you from bumping the side walls.

Once the lock is full, the gates ahead open and the "mules" haul your ship into the next chamber. Because of their rack and pinion drive, the "mules" can climb up or down ramps on the walls as they move from a lower chamber to a higher one, and of course, vice versa. By the time you have traversed the three Gatun locks, the ship has been lifted 85 feet.

The electricity for the "mules" and the whole canal system is powered by water which flows from the River Chagres and the Gatun and Miraflores Lakes.

On leaving the third lock we cast off the cables and entered Lake Gatun. The pilot took us through 32 miles of winding channel. This channel is but 500 feet wide which leaves little margin for ships to pass each other. Next came the Gaillard Cut some eight miles in length and this part really feels like a canal. After the open space of Lake Gatun, the cutting through the hill sides really seems to close in upon you. At the end of the Cut is the lock at Pedro Miguel which lowers you down 31 feet to Lake Miraflores. A short trip of a mile or so across this lake and you come to the two locks at Miraflores. We took these two steps down and were then back to sea level, having "crossed overland" in a manner of speaking. There was still eleven miles to go through yet another channel which led to the Bay of Panama and the Pacific Ocean.

The Panama Canal is an amazing feat of engineering. Work commenced in 1880 and finished in 1914. The equipment used was primitive compared with modern day earth moving and dredging machinery. Much of the work was done manually and over the years the number of labourers employed ran into the hundreds of thousands. Some 50,000 people working on the project lost their lives, mostly due to Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Malaria. Clear of the channel we dropped off the Pilot and headed into the Pacific. We should now feel a bit easier - the worst was behind us, or was it?

The very next day, the 7th December, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and destroyed much of America's Navy. The battle for the Pacific was now well and truly on and our hopes for a more relaxed time had gone.

The news of Pearl Harbour was most disturbing, but looking on the bright side, it had resulted in bringing the Americans well and truly into the war.

We were on our own now, and no longer in convoy. That afternoon we spotted a smudge of smoke on the horizon. What was it? Friend or foe? Our 4" gun's crew made ready. It wasn't long before we could make out a warship going flat out and rapidly overtaking us. As soon as her bridge was clear of the horizon we were challenged by signal lamp. Up went our signal flags giving the response for the day.

The American destroyer, which we could then clearly see, was not entirely satisfied and ordered us to heave to. We slowed down while the Yank kept his distance and covered us with his guns. Having verified our credentials with his base he closed right up and gave us a good look over before giving us the OK to proceed. After being caught napping at Pearl Harbour the Yanks were in no mood to be caught off guard again and were consequently somewhat twitchy and extra cautious.

On the 10th December came the bad news that the battleship "Prince of Wales" and the battle-cruiser "Repulse" had been sunk by the Japanese using torpedo bombers.

The war was decidedly not going the way we would like and the situation was getting worse. We were headed for Singapore via New Zealand and Australia and it was beginning to look as though we were steaming towards trouble.

The Captain decided that since we were now all on our own, and no longer in convoy it would be the ideal time to have a practice shoot for the 12 pdr and 4" guns. We had so little ammunition that we couldn't afford to go wasting it. The shoot was to be limited to one round for each gun. But first, to give the trainers and layers practice, a rifle was strapped in turn to each of the guns' barrels. A weighted cardboard box was tossed over the side to act as a target before it sank. The gunners aimed at the box and triggered the rifle when they had it in their sights. The resultant splash from the bullet gave an indication as to how good, or otherwise, their aim was. A few rounds from the rifle were fired this way and then it was time to fire the bigger guns.

A new target was dropped overboard and drifted astern in the wake of the ship. The gunners followed it in their sights. When it had almost vanished from view the 12 pdr crew were ordered to fire when on target. A flash, staccato bang, cloud of smoke and the shell was on its way. A plume of water spouted up close to the target. Not bad.

The 4" crew went through the rigmarole of loading a shell, bags of cordite etc and were given the go ahead. Another flash, deafening bang, smoke and another water spout close to the box. It was followed by several more splashes as the shell skipped along the sea's surface, rather like those flat smooth stones that you skimmed along a lake's surface when you were a kid.

The 4" gun's crew learned several things from that shot. The flash from the gun swirled back towards you and scorched your eyebrows and the hairs on your arms and legs if they were not protected. The gun was so old and worn that after the barrel recoiled instead of sliding smoothly forward, back into the "ready" position, it slowly trembled and wobbled its way back. Worse, the breech came open of its own accord. This state of affairs raised speculation as to whether upon future firing the breech block might come adrift and kill some of the crew. Not a happy thought, but as there was nothing that could be done about it, it was a gamble that would have to be taken in the event that the gun was required in action.

The Carpenter and Cook made a discovery that didn't please them over much. They had some singlets, socks and underpants hanging on a line, drying in the sunlight. These items were well in front of, but clear of the gun and strung up on the deck below. When they came to collect them they found that the flash had scorched them to such an extent that the clothes disintegrated when they tried to wear them.

We continued on towards New Zealand. On the way we were to stop at Pitcairn Island and hand over mail and medical supplies. Pitcairn Island is the one upon which the mutineers took refuge after the mutiny took place on the "Bounty". The island is small and has an area of 1.75 square miles. It is but a fly speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean